From Ramen with Love: HD Edition
by Ryushi-the-DutchEroSennin
Summary: Bigger, better and with more ramen and humor than ever before, From Ramen with Love returns with less terrible English, new content and an overall upgrade! Valentine's day is coming up and Naruto has no clue how to get a date. With the aid of Ichiraku's daughter, Ayame, Naruto tries to learn how to win the heart of the girl he loves...and the hearts of many other girls!
1. Chapter 1: The Plan

******Chapter 1: The Plan**

Ichiraku Ramen, a ramenstand in Konoha.  
It's the favourite place of a young cheerful blonde shinobi, who likes to go and spend nearly every second there, when he isn't on a mission or busy training.

After all, his favourite hobby was chowing down as much ramen as he could possibly afford. However, tonight unlike other nights, the usually cheerful ramen gobbling Uzumaki Naruto wasn't as energetic or chowing down as much ramen.

Normally, he would have been to his third or fourth bowl at this hour but tonight, Naruto was just stirring the noodles in his ramen around and around, barely taking a bite.

"What's wrong, Naruto? You seem to have lost all that energy of yours tonight...Have you been training too hard?" Old man Ichiraku asked Naruto, as he kneaded the dough for some more noodles to later cook in his delicious broth.

"Hm?" Naruto looked up from his bowl of ramen, "Ah...It's nothing much..."

Old man Ichiraku's hands stopped mid-knead and cocked an eyebrow at the blond shinobi.

"Naruto, you've been our most loyal customer. I've served you various flavours of ramen for many years now and seen you almost every night. I can tell when something is wrong with you. Just because I'm not some master chef working for the daimyo doesn't mean I can't tell when my most loyal customer isn't his usual self."

"Ah! But you should be master chef of the daimyo! I bet he'd love the ramen you make just as much as I do!" Naruto flashed his foxy grin and put some noodles in his mouth, obviously putting in too much effort to look energetic.

The old ramen chef sighed and flashed a small smile at his loyal customer, "Thank you for the compliment, Naruto, but don't try and change the subject. Spill it already. What's on your mind?"

Naruto slurped a bit of the ramen broth up and put his bowl back down, the wide grin and cheerful mood he put up a moment ago disappearing from his face once again and showing one of minor depression.

"Well...you know...Valentine's Day is coming up soon and all..." Naruto said as he stared towards his ramen.

"Ah, I see...It's ok, you know? Everyone gets rejected every once in a while. Even I back in my younger days-..."

"That's not the case!" Naruto replied fiercely.

"Then, why are you so depressed if you haven't been rejected by a girl? And what does it have to do with Valentine's Day?" Ichiraku-san asked as he perked an eyebrow.

"Well...it's more like...I wanted to ask Sakura-chan out on a date for Valentine's Day or something...But when I found her to ask her just that, she was talking to a friend of mine, Fuzzy Eyebrows...He likes her too and I heard him ask her out..." Naruto replied.

"So she agreed to go out with him on Valentine's Day, huh?"

"No, no...I don't know if she agreed or not, since I just turned around and...ran way, scared. But if she said no, then she'll probably say no to me too, because she still likes Fuzzy Eyebrows as a friend. And she wouldn't want to hurt his feelings by going out on a date with me. And if Sakura-chan said yes, then...I really don't know what to do..." Naruto said as he stirred his noodles around in the bowl.

"Ah, I see. Well, I can't help you with that..." Old man Ichiraku said and then flashed a smile at Naruto, "I know someone who can help you, however!"

"Huh...Really?" Naruto asked as he looked wide-eyed at the old ramen stand owner, "Are you serious, old man?!"

"Hm, hm...As serious as the effort I put into the ramen you have in front of you, my friend!" Ichiraku-san said with a big grin on his face.

He turned his head towards the back of the ramen stand and shouted, "Ayame! Come here for a moment!"

Not long after that, a young woman's face peeked of the back, her brown locks hanging in front of her face, "What is it, father?"

"I need you to help me out here with a little problem."

"But, you said that if I was done cleaning up the back that I could go..." The chef's daughter pouted slightly.

"Well, there has been a slight change in plans." The chef nodded at Naruto.

Ayame looked at the blonde shinobi and greeted their stand's regular customer with a casual, "Oh, hey Naruto-kun."

Her father wasted little time to get to the point, however.

"Ayame, " He addressed his daughter, "You're going to take our friend Naruto here out on a date to teach him everything about how to impress the ladies and get a date with them!" Old man Ichiraku proudly announced, his chest swelling with pride of the plan he had just cooked up to help Naruto out.

"WHAT?!" Ayame and Naruto yelled loud enough to make several potential customers shy away from the ramen stand.

"How's that going to help me get Sakura-chan?!" Naruto added as he shot up from his seat.

"Father, he's fifteen! I'm almost nineteen! What the hell are you thinking?!" Ayame added, shaking her father back and forth.

The chef shook his daughter's hands off him and gave her a stern stare, "Ayame, if you don't help Naruto out I'll cut your salary in half and you'll not be allowed to go out for three months..."

"What in the name of!" Ayame said in a high pitched voice.

"Listen up, Naruto." The chef ignored his daughter's protests and turned his attention to Naruto, who was still staring in disbelief at him, "Ayame can help you out with your love problem and teach you not only how to impress a girl, but also help you figure out how to approach them. So that's why you two should go on a date tonight. Ayame can teach you the basics of going on a date and then you can put it into practice for...what's her name again?"

"You mean, Sakura-chan?" Naruto asked as he slowly sat down in his seat again.

"Yes, yes, Sakura-chan." Old man Ichiraku nodded, "Ayame, Naruto has been our most loyal customer for years now so I expect you to put your entire being into helping him."

"But, father, I..." Ayame protested once more.

"No buts, young lady. So...you two go on a date now and make the best of it. Naruto, I expect you to bring Ayame back home before midnight and not a minute later or I'll start charging more for each bowl of ramen you eat." Ichiraku-san said as he pushed Ayame out of the stand and next to Naruto.

"Eh?! I'll defintely bring her back before midnight!" Naruto said as he jumped up from his seat again.

"Good! Now go, you two! ...Oh and Naruto, since you didn't really eat that bowl of ramen, consider it on the house. Now go, my protégés! Ahahahahaha!" Ichiraku-san cackled as he picked up the dough he had been kneading and start tossing it around in the air.

Ayame let out a sigh and turned towards the blonde shinobi, "Alright, Naruto-kun. Guess we don't have much of a choice then. We first need to head back to my house so I can get out of my working uniform and into something...well, nicer for a date. Are you ready?"

"Ready for what, I wonder..." Naruto let out.

Ayame grabbed on to Naruto's hand, who slightly blushed at the sudden gesture, before she started pulling him along towards the Ichiraku residence, "Ready to make the best out of this little predicament, of course!"

Somehow, Naruto felt a smile crawl up on his face, "Yeah!"

That smile was, however, nowhere to be found half an hour later, when he was impatiently waiting in front of Ayame's room.

"Come on! What's taking you so long anyway?" Naruto wondered out loud as he paced back and forth in front of her door.

"I think that will be lesson one for you, Naruto-kun." Ayame replied, her voice slightly muffled by the door in between her and Naruto.

"Huh?" Naruto stopped his pacing and looked at the door, almost expecting Ayame to be finally done.

"If you pick up a girl at her house before she's ready to head out, you'll have to wait a long time...most of the time, at least. So you have to learn to be patient, they're getting pretty for you, after all."

"But...this isn't a real date." Naruto crossed his arms and leaned back against the wall, "_If it was, I'd be way more nervous..._"

"It is going to be somewhat _like _a real date. Besides, just be thankful I don't need a shower right now. I'm the kind of girl that likes to bathe for a _really _long time."

Naruto looked up at the sound of the door to Ayame's room sliding open.

"Naruto-kun, can you come help me out here for a moment?" Ayame asked.

Naruto looked into Ayame's room and there he saw her with her back towards him, half wearing a beautiful blue-white kimono.

"Er...What can I help you with?" Naruto asked hesitantly as he wandered with his eyes over her exposed back and arms, which were only covered up partly by her hair and something else, Naruto noted, after which he quickly averted his eyes as he was unsure where to leave them.

"Well you see, I kind of forgot that I have a lot of trouble tying a knot in these tops since I normally only use the kind that have a zipper when I go out. So, if you could please tie a knot for me..." Ayame said, motioning towards the straps at the back of her top.

"Eh...ehm...sure thing." Naruto flashed a grin and stepped into the older girl's room.

"But if you're going to wear a kimono why would you need that underneath it?" Naruto asked as he stared at Ayame's back, wondering how the mysterious top worked considering there were no straps on her shoulders.

"Because even though it's just the two of us are going on a 'date', we might also go to a club or something. Then a kimono isn't really that cool, now is it?" Ayame replied and gave Naruto a wink, "Well, not like I really know what we're going to do tonight outside of dinner."

"Ah, I guess you're right." Naruto said grinning sheepishly and grabbed on to the two ends of the straps.

As Naruto took a deep breath in order to relax somewhat, the smell of several different ramen flavours and an even sweeter smell entered his nostrils. Feeling intoxicated by the mixture of scents, he forgot for a moment what he was actually supposed to do.

"Naruto-kun?" Ayame's voice shook him out of his trance and he quickly shook his head to clear it even further.

"You...You were thinking something perverted, weren't you?" Ayame asked him and flashed a mischievous grin at him.

Naruto shook his head again, this time with wide eyes, "It was nothing like that!"

As firmly as Naruto said that, he pulled on the strings to tie the knot.

"Ah! Not so hard Naruto-kun!" Ayame moaned loudly as the top tightened around her chest. Right in that instant, the door of Ayame's room was kicked down, the shock causing Naruto to fall over and pulling Ayame on top of him.

"What do you think you are doing to my baby girl!" A woman's voice yelled in anger.

Naruto blinked a couple of times to look at the woman that was standing on top the fallen door and noticed she had a frying pan in her hands, a frying pan that for some reason seemed to emit an intent to kill him.

"Mother! It's nothing like that!" Ayame yelled as she sat up, forgetting she was sitting on top of Naruto right now.

"Ayame! Dear heaven! He's underage! You are _so _getting in trouble for this, young lady!" Ayame's mom yelled.

"I'm telling you, it's nothing like that! He just pulled the strings of my top a bit too hard!"

"Why are you letting a teen with raging hormones like him do it! I'm your mother! You should have called for me!"

"But I didn't even know you were home today!" Ayame protested

"Eh...Neechan..." Naruto's voice barely reached Ayame's ears as her weight was slowly squeezing the breath out of him.

"Hm, what's wrong?" Ayame looked over her shoulder, only to find a blue faced Naruto.

"Can't...breathe..." Naruto managed to say before passing out.

"Ah! Naruto-kun!" Ayame yelped as she quickly jumped off him. Less than a second later, she was firmly gripping his shoulders and shaking him back and forth.

"Naruto-kun, Naruto-kun! Hang in there!"

When the light returned to Naruto's eyes, he felt slightly disorientated.

"___What happened...?_" Naruto wondered as he carefully took in his surroundings.

The first thing he noticed once his vision was clear again was a middle aged lady, holding a frying pan in her hands. Then he noticed Ayame, old man Ichiraku's daugher, beside her, fussing about some thing or another.

Naruto narrowed his eyes and tried to discern who the middle-aged lady was, but he couldn't quite place her. Though he did remember a sudden feel of danger from the frying pan.

"Welcome back to the land of the living, Naruto-kun." The lady said, the intent to kill Naruto recalled from before being gone, though his mind was slow to catch up.

"AH! DON'T KILL ME!" he shouted at the top of my lungs as he shot up.

Ayame and the lady looked wide-eyed at him, like he just said something funny, but to him it was not funny at all. To him, the lady still looked like she was ready to hit him on the head a couple of times with that frying pan.

Ayame started to giggle and the lady sighed as she lowered her frying pan.

"I'm sorry for the misunderstanding." She apologised, "Anyway, you two had somewhere to go, right? I'll ask your dad to come home early and fix that door." The lady said before leaving the room with Ayame seemingly amused.

Naruto on the other hand still felt lost.

"Ehm...Like...what in the world happened just now?" Naruto asked as he looked towards the door that was lying on the floor.

"Hm, you don't remember?"

"Eh...no, not really...Something with that frying pan...I think?"

"I asked you to tie my top, you pulled the straps a bit too hard, causing me to say something that had my mom's maternal-sense tingling. So, naturally, she came and kicked the door in, out of shock we fell, I landed on top of you and I kind of sat on your stomach as I argued with my mother...And then you kind of...passed out." Ayame explained, "Hey, on the bright side, I knew CPR. If I hadn't preformed it on you, you'd probably have died here. That would've put a damper on the whole date thing, wouldn't it?"

"Died!" Naruto let out in surprise.

"Hm, probably...I guess we would've gotten some medical ninja here pretty fast? Well, let's get going. We've wasted enough time. We'll take it easy with things as I am not sure how well you are feeling. Still, we made a promise to my dad that you and I have to keep, so we are going out for dinner right now."

Ayame stood up from the side of the bed Naruto was lying on and headed for the exit of her room.

"Come on, get your ass of my bed already." Ayame said with a playful smile on her face.

"Huh, your bed? Eh?!" Naruto yelled as he jumped off Ayame's bed and started to straighten the sheets.

"Come on, there's no need for something like that. I'll be sleeping at home tonight anyway." Ayame grabbed Naruto's hand and pulled him after her.

Naruto felt a blush crawl up on his cheeks again as they were holding hands, and then something just hit him, "Wait...You said...CPR!"

"That's right." Ayame replied, facing forward and pulling Naruto further along

"As in CPR..." Naruto swallowed, "CPR?"

Ayame stopped in her tracks, "Yeah CPR as in CPR, CPR."

"But that means!" Naruto blushed and touched his lips with his free hand.

"Means what?" Ayame asked as she turned around, looked at Naruto, and noticed he was touching his lips.

Ayame turned bright red, knowing what he was thinking of, "I-it's nothing like that! It was just to...well...y-you know...save your life! Y-You better not get any crazy ideas! Now come on, let's get going...!"

As they left Ayame's house, both of them remained silent, walking hand in hand, neither of them really knowing why they didn't stop doing that.

"Ah...So...where are we going to eat?" Naruto asked, raising a grin, but he still did not dare to look into Ayame her eyes.

"First, we'll just go to a restaurant. And just for this once, I'll pay for you." Ayame said, "Ow! That's another lesson I guess."

She finally let Naruto's hand go and raised a finger in the air.

"If you can, always pay for your date's meal. And make sure that she won't have to pay yours for you." Ayame said, nodding, though she too avoided looking straight at Naruto.

"Huh? Why not?" Naruto asked confused, feeling a bit more comfortable now that they were no longer holding hands.

"Because, that just isn't right. A man should always be able to pay for himself and if possible for his date. That's just how it is." Ayame said as she crossed her arms.

"Hn, Girls don't want to pay for the guys just because they'd rather spend it on other things than on someone who likes them." Naruto said, sounding moderately annoyed.

"That's not true!" Ayame raised her voice and looked towards Naruto with a slight blush on her face, though Naruto couldn't tell if it was from anger or a feeling of embarrassment.

"Then why won't they each take turns paying? On one date, the man could do it and on the next date, the woman could." Naruto said, feeling like he may just have said the smartest thing he had said in a long time.

"You might have a point there..." Ayame said as she blinked at him," Ah! With all these things happening...I almost forgot!"

"Huh? What?" Naruto asked as he questioningly looked at Ayame, the air of awkwardness fading away.

"Why do we need to do this whole date thing? My dad wouldn't set us up on a date without good reason. He said it was helping you out with something, right? What was it again?" Ayame asked.

Naruto explained to her how he wanted to ask Sakura out for Valentine's Day, but that Rock Lee was there before he was and asked her out. For a moment, he thought of skipping the part of how he didn't know what she answered because he ran away, but he decided to tell her the full truth.

"So, I'm not sure if I'll get rejected or if I end up hurting one of my friends..." Naruto said with a troubled look on his face.

"That's all? You should have stayed and listened to what she told your friend." Ayame seemed just as troubled as Naruto, although for entirely different reasons.

"Yeah but even if you say so..." Naruto said as he crossed his arms and mused about the situation.

"Naruto-kun" Ayame placed a hand on his shoulder and smiled, "Just so you know, Haruno Sakura isn't the only girl available in town, you know? I'm sure you know more girls then just her, right?"

"Of course...There's Ino, who is kinda Sakura's rival and best friend at the same time...Then there's Hinata, she's really friendly but for some reason she keeps fainting when I get close to her..." Naruto said counting on his fingers.

"Maybe she thinks you have a scary face." Ayame teased.

"What! I don't have a scary face!" Naruto replied all too earnestly and pointed at Ayame

"Ah! Scary! So scary! Get away from me, you scary, scary ninja!" Ayame backed away, pretending to be afraid of Naruto, though the big teasing smile on her face made it obvious she didn't mean a word she said.

"That's not funny!"

Ayame giggled as she pretended to faint, "Any other girls that faint in your presence, Naruto-kun, or know at the very least?"

"...It's not funny..." Naruto muttered, before clearing his throat, "Hmm...There is Tenten, who's Neji and Fuzzy Eyebrows' team-mate...I don't really know much about her, though. Ow and then there is my friend's Gaara sister, Temari, from what I've seen she's quite...aggressive."

"And any other girls you know?" Ayame asked as Naruto seemed to be thinking deeply about which girls he knew.

"Other than them, I think I only know a couple of women." Naruto finally replied with a nod.

"Thank you for the compliment." Ayame said with a smile, Naruto looking up in surprise towards her.

"You didn't name me when you were naming the girls...Which means you see me as an adult woman, right?" Ayame said sticking her tongue out towards Naruto. He grinned widely and let out a short laugh as he put his hands behind his head.

"If you're fine with that, then I'll consider Ayame-neechan an adult." He said.

"Alright, then as the responsible adult, I say we're going to eat at..." Ayame looked around for a moment, "That restaurant! Are you okay with that?"

"Hehe. Of course! All this talking and thinking has kind of made me hungry, actually. Plus! You can teach me more over dinner, right?" Naruto asked with an eager smile on his face.

"Well, we'll need to see who else you could ask out on a date. Or have a couple of dates before Valentine's Day so you get used to it and all." Ayame suggested as she tried to form a battle plan in her mind.

They soon arrived at their own two person table inside the restaurant and ordered their meals. As they were waiting for their meals to be brought to them, Naruto decided it was best to simply speak his mind and listen to what Ayame has to say about it.

"But who should I ask out? I don't think you'd have the time to take me on multiple dates. And if I suddenly asked any of the girls I know, they'd think I've given up on Sakura-chan and that I like them, right?"

"Then how about asking someone out on a date that people think you couldn't possibly date?" Ayame suggested with a smile.

"Hmm...That sounds like a good plan, but who could I..."

"You know some women, right? Probably some of the Jounin, I assume? You could ask one of them to 'discuss shinobi business' over a dinner or something." Ayame suggested

"What?!" Naruto yelled.

"Sssht, Keep your voice down." Ayame hushed him, "Do you want people to stare at us or something?"

"Oh, sorry..."

"Anyway, why not?" Ayame asked in a hushed voice, "It might be weird, but you could ask them for advice about...well, all of this too."

"Because..." Naruto replied.

"Well, what women do you know then?" Ayame asked.

"Eh...Tsunade-obachan, but I doubt she knows a lot about dating since she's always just drinking sake and gambling...I doubt she really went on many dates...then again, I might be wrong. Then there's Shizune-neechan, but she's always making sure that Tsunade-obachan works, so she can't go and date that much either, I think...Then Kurenai-sensei and that chuunin examiner, what's her face...Mitarashi...Anko or something like that. I think they have the most time off at least." Naruto stated with an affirmative nod.

"And out of those two, who do you think could teach you the most?" Ayame asked.

Unknown to either of them, the ears of the woman sitting behind Ayame perked up, her coat rustling slightly as she moved her chair a bit further back to hear more of their conversation.

"Hmmm...Probably...That chuunin examiner. Ero-sennin told me once she had some kind of disease or something...Nymphiwhatchamacallit? Anyway, he said it meant that she likes people a lot or something." Naruto said and now the ears of the person behind him perked up as well, his white hair slightly swaying as he started to turn around.

Ayame stared blankly at Naruto as he pondered, however his pondering was soon disturbed.

"Yo, Naruto! I didn't think I'd find a ramen obsessed guy like you in a restaurant like this!" The middle aged white haired man exclaimed as he suddenly stood up from his seat and practically jumped in front of Naruto.

"Gah! Ero-sennin! What are you doing here?!" Naruto yelled, pointing at his sensei's face.

"That's my line, you brat! Buuuut..." Jiraiya sang the last word of his sentence as he turned his head towards Ayame, "I already see what brought you here. Hehehe, who would've thought that you listened to my wise teachings these past two and a half years about women and actually made use of them!"

"Huh? What are you talking about?" Naruto asked with a dumbfound look on his face.

"Tell me, Naruto...Why would you need advice about women from a woman when you already learned everything from me? A sly way to take her out...effective but sly..." Jiraiya said nodding.

"That's not what it's like!...Hey, wait a minute! How do you know what I was talking about with her? How long have you been here Ero-sennin and what else did you hear?!" Naruto asked as he put one foot on his seat and dramatically pointed towards Jiraiya's face.

"Talking about with her? I heard absolutely nothing. I just happened to sit down just in time to hear my student call me by the name I forbid him to use out in public." Jiraiya said innocently.

"...Liar." Naruto replied, feeling the need to point out the obvious lie his teacher was telling.

"Ah, anyway...Watch and learn, Naruto." Jiraiya said as he turned back to his own seat.

Naruto leaned across the table towards Ayame and cupped a hand to the side of his mouth.

"You wanna see the old fart's sore excuse of complimenting a lady and him getting smacked in the face by her?" Naruto whispered to Ayame, who nodded and sat down in the seat next to Naruto.

The two of them perked over the edge of their seats and looked at the empty seat across Jiraiya.

"Uhm, excuse me, Miss." Jiraiya said as he raised his hand when a waitress walked into their direction.

"Can I help you, sir?" The waitress asked as she walked up to Jiraiya.

She was quite good looking, probably just a bit taller than Naruto, and the first thing that Jiraiya of course and Naruto noted was that the waitress's chest was quite big for someone as short as her.

"Ah yes...Would you mind to sit down over there for a second?" Jiraiya asked.

"Sorry sir, but I have customers to help."

"Well, I'm a customer to and part of the help you could provide me comes from sitting down for a few moments."

"...Well alright, but if I get scolded by my boss, you'll have to take the responsibility." The waitress said as she sat down across Jiraiya.

Jiraiya raised a slight smirk before speaking up,"Might I ask why you are working in a restaurant?"

"To earn money, of course." The waitress said smiling sheepishly, "I have to pay the rent and keep on living a decent life, you know. Besides, it isn't so bad. I receive quite a lot of tips from our customers."

"I see...But, you don't plan to work here your entire life, right?" Jiraiya asked as he perked an eyebrow.

"Of course not, I want to become a fashion designer." The waitress replied.

"Hooo. That's quite interesting." Jiraiya raised a smirk.

"Hey, when does he get smacked?" Ayame whispered to Naruto.

"I don't know. The old fart is lasting longer than usual...Maybe he wants to show off in front of you."

"Me? Why would he want to show off for me?"

"Yeah, for you. You're the girl here, after all. Probably he'd like to take both that girl and you back to his hermit shelter."

"Hermit...shelter...?" Ayame's eyes twitched for a moment at the thought of what Jiraiya's hermit shelter might entail, but her focus quickly returned on Jiraiya's attempt to pick up the waitress.

"You know, you look more like a model to me." Jiraiya said as he took a sip of the water that was already on the table.

"A model? Me? What? Are you some kind of agent?" The waitress asked surprised, though with a slight smile on her face.

"Yeah, you have really pretty eyes. I bet they'd come out great on pictures...Though I'm not an agent I have an...eye for good looking, future models." Jiraiya said as his eyes averted down to the waitress' chest.

"Ehm...My eyes are up here..." The waitress said with a look of displeasure on her face.

"Hm, what?" Jiraiya asked as he looked back up.

"You were staring at my chest. I saw you clearly staring at my chest." The waitress said as she glared at Jiraiya.

"No, no, no, no! I was just looking at your uniform! It er...looks like it's kind of tightly wrapped on your body..." Jiraiya said.

"Wow, you noticed that? Yeah, it is, actually! They didn't have one that fitted me perfectly, the other uniforms were even smaller, so I had to take this one, which is the biggest they told me they had!" The waitress said as she demonstrated jut how tight it was, much to Jiraiya's perverted pleasure as the saliva started to roll out of his mouth.

"What a liar...! He was looking at her chest. Even I could tell that she has a rather large chest and that he was looking at it." Naruto whispered to Ayame.

"Oooh, Naruto, you stared too, didn't you?" Ayame whispered back and softly giggled.

"N-No, I didn't...!" Naruto whispered back fierce.

"Naruto, you perv." Ayame giggled.

Naruto softly pushed his elbow into her side and slightly nudged her off her seat.

"Sir, you are a customer and I appreciate the fact that you find me attractive, but if you continue thinking perverted things about me, I'm going to smack you trough that wall..."

Jiraiya shook out of his trance and quickly wiped off any remaining drool with a napkin.

"Ahem...Sorry about that...I couldn't help but remember something as you were...ahem...well, it was just that something happened here many years ago, back when I was a younger man. The uniforms haven't changed since then, you know."

"Happened? Oh, I see. Sir, you met your wife here or something, right?" The waitress asked, kindly smiling at him.

"Wife...? Ehm, I'm single." Jiraiya said, smiling awkwardly.

"Then, what happened here that you just remembered?" The waitress asked.

"Well...It just so happens that, a lot of years ago, there was also a girl working here that was er...quite attractive to say the least. And her uniform was too tight and small for her as well so..." Jiraiya said and then whispered something in the waitress' ear, who flushed red in her face.

"That's awful!" The waitress said when Jiraiya was done with his story.

"Yeah, isn't it?" Jiraiya said noding as he sat back, "So, how about you and I go and get you out of that uniform then?"

"Yeah, let's go! I don't want to spend another minute in this horrible place." The waitress stood up and Jiraiya, giddy as a school girl got up as well.

The two of them headed towards the exit and stopped for a moment there as the manager was standing there as well, greeting guests that came in.

"Kani-chan, where are you go..." The manager started, but got interrupted by a loud smack to his face, leaving a red hand print on it.

"That's for having the same perverted ideas as your uncle!" The waitress yelled and then stomped out of the restaurant. Jiraiya grinned towards Naruto and Ayame, gave them a thumbs up before quickly following the waitress out of the restaurant, hopping from one foot to the other.

"Well, at the very least someone got smacked..." Ayame said as she blinked.

"How the hell did Ero-sennin not screw up?" Naruto asked no one in particular, struck in complete disbelief.

"Ehm...Naruto-kun?"

"Hm? What's wrong?"

"Lesson number three: Don't ever try to pull what your sensei just did...It won't work that well on any other girl than that one...I hope."

Naruto nodded as he turned 90 degrees, Ayame doing the same only the other way around. Both of them realised just how close they were actually sitting now, their faces only an inch or two away from each other.

A blush appeared on Naruto's face and there appeared one also on Ayame's, "...Naruto-kun..."

They slowly leaned forward, towards each other's face,

"E...e-excuse me!"

They looked away towards their table to see a waitress put down their meals and despite the fact that she was bowing, they both could clearly tell she was furiously blushing as well.

"Sorry to interupt...Really really really sorry! But your meals are ready." The waitress said while keeping her eyes shut tight.

Both Naruto and Ayame jumped up and sat straight up as they said in chorus, "Itadakimasu!"

"Have a good meal." The waitress quickly walked away.

Naruto started chowing down his meal, but was interrupted when Ayame spoke up, "Lesson four, Don't chow down your food."

Naruto looked towards her and noticed that she was still slightly blushing.

"Why not? It's delicious, so I want a lot of it at once and all." Naruto asked, trying to get the situation from just a moment ago out of his head.

"Well, look at your face then." Ayame said, faintly smiling.

"My face?" Naruto asked as he poked his own face, feeling all kinds of leftovers from his meal sticking on it.

"Ah, I see..." Naruto quickly wiped it off with his napkin.

"You're a ninja right? You should eat your food like one." Ayame said with a nod.

"Eat your food like a ninja?" Naruto asked, not quite sure what she meant by that.

"Shinobi don't leave a trace when gathering information, right? Eat your food without leaving a trace of it behind on your face other than a satisfied look." Ayame answered, feeling like the wise teacher she was currently acting as.

"Ah, I see...Then I'll try that!" Naruto said smiling widely, "But just eating properly won't solve my problems..."

"About that, I already told you, you should ask one of the women you know. They could teach you a lot."

The woman who had previously been sitting on the seat behind Ayame, before Ayame sat down next to Naruto, stood up now and left quietly with a wide smirk on her face, her rain coat fluttering as she paced quickly towards the exit of the restaurant.

"Even so, that still won't get me anyone for Valentine's Day this year."

"That's true...Then, we'd have to hook you up with a girl as well, don't we?"

"Eh?! Hook me up...? But how are you planning to do that?" Naruto asked wide eyed.

"Hm...Let me think about that for a few moments..." Ayame closed her eyes and thought as she held her chopsticks between her fingers, as if meditating to take a certain single piece of her plate without looking.

"Ah, I know! How about you write love letters to every girl you know with a reply address so they can send replies. You'll just send them anonymously and they won't know who it is." She said when divine inspiration seemed to have finally hit her.

"Then, how will they like me if they don't know who I am?"

"They'll be curious! If I got a love letter from some mysterious guy, then I'd want to know who he was too. You'll just have to write it so that they won't know it's you and you could describe in those letters what you like so much about them."

"I see...So...Should I even send one to Sakura-chan then?"

"Of course! I think it will be easier for you to write down your feelings for her than it would be if you had to tell her face to face."

Naruto nodded as he put down his plate and thought for a few moments before speaking up again, "But...If I put my own address underneath it, people will find out it's me right away."

Ayame let out a sigh and put down her chopsticks, "That's why I said that you should add a reply address. Just put my address underneath it. My mom will start traveling again tomorrow to promote father's ramen stand and to find new ingredients to put into our ramen. And since father and I are at the ramen stand all day long and I'm home before father is, I can check the mail and see if you got any replies back from the girls."

"Hm, hm...That would work, I think. I have no idea what to write to any of them...But it could work."

"Hmm...Hey, listen Naruto-kun, I have a day-off tomorrow. How about...we write the letters tomorrow and then send them to everyone. Sounds like a good idea, right?"

Naruto grinned widely, feeling that this plan might actually be pretty solid, and nodded, "Sounds great to me. We can discus everything and anything else then as well!"

After finishing their meal, Ayame paid the bill for them as she promised.

Outside, they they were greeted by loud, painful groans from the alley next to the restaurant. It stopped them in their tracks, both of them had a shiver run down their spine and they slowly walked into the alley, Naruto first with a protective arm in front of Ayame.

In the alley, they found Jiraiya lying beaten and bruised against the wall.

"Eh?! Ero-sennin?! What happened?!" Naruto yelled as he and Ayame rushed towards his aid.

"Naruto? Is...Is that you, my pupil?" Jiraiya asked, and just then Naruto noted that he was covered in scratch marks and had two red hand prints on his face.

"...You did it again, didn't you...You ero-sennin." Naruto said glaring at his sensei, knowing fully well what the cause of his teacher's current state was.

"I...I couldn't help it...She knew she wanted it! And they looked so nice and soft...And then she did this to me! Life's unfair, Naruto, unfair I tell ya!" Jiraiya said as he put he arms out in front of him and acted like he was squeezing something with his hands. Much to Naruto's surprise, Ayame smacked Jiraiya in his face.

"It's your own fault! You shouldn't do such a thing to a woman unless you are in a relationship with her. Hmph!" She yelled at him.

Naruto let out a sigh and Jiraiya dropped his arms before starting to mutter, "So close...so close..."

"I guess I'll have to take him to Tsunade-obachan... Sorry, Ayame-chan...I think that's all for tonight." Naruto stated as he picked up his sensei.

"No. It isn't...Lesson number 5: Don't use your sensei's ways to get to a girl. Ever. Break that rule and I'll make you regret it!" Ayame said, throwing a playful smile at Naruto before turning around and walking out of the alley.

"Ayame-chan?" Naruto called out to her.

Ayame turned her head and looked over her shoulder towards him, "Hm?"

"Thanks...For, y'know, willing to help me out with all this. I really appreciate it." Naruto said smiling.

"It's nothing. Just promise me to take me out on another date. A proper one, where we actually can do more then just eat dinner." Ayame replied with a big smile on her face, as she brushed several locks of hair out of her face.

"Hehe, alright! I promise you!" Naruto said as Ayame headed around the corner.

"Naruto..." Jiraiya said.

"What is it, Ero-sennin?" Naruto asked as he raised an eyebrow.

Jiraiya raised a wide grin and, with a puff of smoke, he was back to his old normal self, unscratched and unbeaten.

"Eh?! You weren't beaten up by that girl?!"

"As a matter of fact I've send her to a hotel where's she waiting for me...I just wanted to see how it went between you and _A____yame-chan._" Jiraiya emphasized the last part as he grinned widely at his student.

"We don't have anything going on! She was just going to help me with some things that I need help with!" Naruto retorted.

"Ah...You really are my student." Jiraiya said grinning as he placed a hand on Naruto's shoulder, "I remember when Yondaime first used his natural charm to make a lady fall for him, just like you are doing right now. Don't underestimate my teachings, Naruto! They'll help you out, without a doubt!"

"When it comes to being a shinobi they do..." Naruto muttered, but Jiraiya heard him nonetheless.

"Don't act like that! I'm a man of many wisdoms, as some might call it! Actually, I got it mostly from Sandaime, but that doesn't matter... Anyway, you know about my novels right?"

"Of course, I do. What about them?"

"Well...You're officially under age...but I think it's time I handed you one to improve your knowledge about women...amongst other things. Yondaime was the first one to read my very first novel, you know? So, I'm going to give you the very first Icha Icha Paradise I ever wrote and that Yondaime read..." Jiraiya stated as he pulled out a Icha Icha Paradise novel from his pockets.

"Huh?" Just as Jiraiya took it out it was gone from his hands.

"If Yondaime read this, then it can't be that perverted! After all Yondaime is the greatest Hokage ever until I become one! Later, Ero-sennin!" Naruto yelled before rushing off with the book.

"Ah, he's still a cute kid when it comes to certain matters." Jiraiya said grinning as he rubbed the back of his head, "I wonder where this will lead though...Oh well, only time will tell, I suppose!"

"___Yondaime Hokage read this book and was popular with the ladies...If that's true then this book must be not so bad right?" __N_aruto thought as he rushed home.

Five minutes after Naruto had gotten home and started reading Icha Icha Paradise, crows flew away from the top of his roof upon hearing Naruto shout at the top of his lungs, though no comprehensible sound came out of his throat.

"Gah...gaaah...Yondaime...read this? I think I'm going to die from this nose bleed..." Naruto said as he was lying back down on his bed, his nose bleeding like it has never done before.

"I see...He must have...gotten strong by surviving this book and...ever since then he could handle major blood loss...I'm going to do that too!" Naruto said with a pinched nose as he sat back up and read the next couple of lines in the book. Blood again came out of his nostrills as he shot back down on his bed.

"...Who ever said reading couldn't hurt you was wrong...I'm not going to read that anymore until I've recovered from losing this much blood..." Naruto stated as he shut the book tight and laid it on his desk.

He looked at his alarm clock and let go of his nose when it finally stopped bleeding, "___Tomorrow...Ayame-chan will help me with those letters and get me a date...I just hope this all works out in the end..."_


	2. Chapter 2: From Nemar with Love

******A/N:** Hey folks, here we are again! Good to see some of you back, see some new faces, and most of all, your excitement and hype for this story is great to see.

Just want to quickly clear a few things up so you won't have to ask those again:

-This is all based on the original script, it is edited and adjusted as I see fit. This still takes time, so it can take a while before I update. Any typo's you find are either me screwing up when writing next content or from the old script, in which case I didn't find it. Thanks for pointing these out, but you really don't have to unless it is a very, very terrible mistake. Stuff like "Ow" and "Oh" is easily misread as I'm mostly working on these chapters around midnight (or around times that I'm very tired at least), but thanks for pointing it out NaruHarem4Ever. I'm keeping an eye out for those from now on ;)

-This will be based on the original story but with some changes here and there. Meaning some content will be cut, changed or rewritten. For the majority, it will follow the same plot, but the ending will be different and a new one, which will take the longest to 'fix', so to say, as I'll have to actually write it instead of simply think "What would fit better here"

-No guarantees about the final pairing. All bets are off when it comes to the ending. All I'll promise is that it will be better than the original.

-I haven't read Naruto in ages. No guarantees for 'new' girls making it in, but I will keep my eyes open for opportunities (and do some Naruto wiki-ing).

-Chapter titles might change from the original too, which is usually a good indication of whether I personally believe I added some major new parts, that are either scenes that have:

1) better interaction between Naruto and the girls

2) new scenes with interaction between characters other than Naruto and the girls

3) all new plot element that will (hopefully) help form a better and more satisfying end to the story as a whole.

Now, I've said enough BS in these Author Notes so, for the good old times, I'd like to say...

Now on with the story!

******Chapter 2: From Nemar with Love**

"Welcome home, darling."

Ayame greeted Naruto with a smile so sweet that his heart skipped several beats, before resuming a thumping more furiously than before. If the smile wasn't enough, she stood there right in front of him, wearing nothing but her apron.

"A-Ayame-chan! What are you wearing?! You're...you're practically...!" Naruto let out.

"Come now, darling. You've had a long day. Would like to take a bath?" She asked, her soft hands clasping Naruto's.

"That's...That's not the..." Naruto protested.

"Or perhaps your favourite ramen?" Ayame asked as she directed him towards the table with a steaming bowl of ramen on top of it.

"N-No, I..."

"Or perhaps..." Ayame's soft hands wrapped around Naruto and her mouth inched closer to his. Naruto's heart froze, before thumping so loudly he thought it might pop up, both by Ayame's gestures and by the fact that she was showing him more than just a little bit of cleavage.

"A little...bit...of...me?" Ayame whispered into his ear before...

"Aaaaah!" Naruto shot up from his bed for what seemed to be the hundredth time that night.

"The same dream again...Damn it..." Naruto rubbed the remaining sleep out of his eyes and stared to his alarm clock.

"Five thirty already...Well...It's not like I'll sleep for long anyway...Damn Ero-sennin and his novels..." Naruto muttered as he slowly got out of bed.

A shiver ran over his body as his feet touched the cold floor, something he needed to shake his mind out of the recurring dream he had all night long.

Naruto sleepily walked towards the bathroom, taking off his clothes as he did so.

"Damn it...I have to be energetic today...I barely slept an hour...Stupid, perverted book sticking things in my head about..." Naruto stopped mid sentence as the scene from his dreams flashed through his mind again, "Aaaah! Get out of my head, get out! I don't want to become like Ero-Sennin, especially if it involves Ayame-chan!"

He quickly turned on the shower and stepped right in, the water quickly washing what remained of any sleep away. For a while Naruto simply stared at the drops of water that fell down on his head, trying to relax a bit and get his usual energy back.

"___Come on! Focus, wake up and gather some energy! You don't have time to be tired today! Ayame-chan is going to help you write letters to Sakura-chan and the others remember? If you screw this up, then you won't have a date for Valentine's Day. This is your shot at getting a girlfriend as well, you know!" __He told himself_

"A girlfriend, huh...Well, if it's Sakura-chan, then I really couldn't be any happier right? I can't waste this opportunity! It's time to do this thing!" Naruto raised a grin, feeling somewhat more energetic now.

After taking his shower and getting dressed, as per usual, Naruto took a cup of instant ramen before heading out. The streets of Konoha were pretty much deserted this early in the morning and the sun was slowly rising above the sleeping Village. Naruto stopped for a moment to look at the rising sun, squinting his eyes not to get blinded too much by the light.

"This is pretty nice...I wonder what girls find more romantic. A sunset or a sunrise...This looks pretty too and it kind of gives you a warm feeling...When the sun goes down, you just get chilly and all...I like this much more than a sunset, I think..." Naruto talked to himself as he took his time to enjoy the rare opportunity to see the sun rise.

"Yo! Good morning Naruto-kun!"

Naruto was shaken out of his thoughts by a familiar voice. He turned to face the person, though it took a moment or two for his eyes to adjust again after staring at the rising sun for so long. When they had finally adjusted, Naruto flashed a wide grin.

"Yo Fuzzy Eyebrows! What are you doing up so early?"

"The springtime of youth waits for no one!" Lee declared as he ran around in small circles in front of Naruto, "I got up extra early today to become extra energetic and do even more training later today!"

"Hey, that sounds like something I could use. I kind of didn't sleep a whole lot, but today's a big day for me, so I kind of need a lot of energy too. Got any ideas as to what I can do, Fuzzy Eyebrows?"

"Oh! You could join me in my laps around Konoha! I'm currently on number 273 of 500 laps! It really keeps me energetic all day long!"

Naruto's shoulders slumped and he gave Lee a questioning look,"You know, a normal person would be extremely tired after doing that many laps instead of energetic..."

"Not for those with the spirit of youth! Join me for one lap and you'll see that it works! I can guarantee you at least that much!" Lee struck the nice-guy pose, his teeth sparkling in the early sunlight.

"Well...It's not like I have anything else to do right now...So, why not? From here all the way around Konoha, right?"

"Yes! That will do! Though my finish line is elsewhere, but that doesn't matter! Let's go, Naruto-kun!" Lee exclaimed and raced ahead of Naruto.

"Hey wait for me!" Naruto said, running after the energetic youthful taijutsu expert.

"Will this really work though, Fuzzy Eyebrows? I really can't be tired for the rest of the day and Konoha is pretty big! One lap is going take a while, right?" Naruto asked somewhere along their run.

"You'll be energetic for the entire day and then at night you'll sleep like a baby! Believe me!" Lee struck a running nice-guy pose before facing forward again and increasing the pace even further.

"Fuzzy Eyebrows..." Naruto said as he looked away from Lee.

"What is it, Naruto-kun?"

"Well! You know! I kind of heard an interesting rumor about you!"

"A rumor? About me? What is it?! Has my youth finally broken trough and people started noticing me?! OOOOOW GAI-SENSEI! I DID IT!"

"That's my student!" Gai popped up out of nowhere, posing in his nice-guy pose as Naruto and Lee ran past him.

"GAI-SENSEI!" Lee exclaimed, sliding across the ground to turn around and race back towards his sensei.

"LEE!" Gai exclaimed equally loud as he leaped towards his student.

"GAI-SENSEI! ARE YOU UP EARLY TO FEEL THE SPIRIT OF YOUTH AS WELL?!"

"OF COURSE I AM, LEE! FOR TODAY, I'LL GO AND BEAT MY ETERNAL RIVAL KAKASHI, AGAIN!"

"OWWWW! GAI-SENSEI! YOU ARE SO COOL WHEN YOU SAY THINGS LIKE THAT!"

"LEE!"

"GAI-SENSEI!"

Naruto covered his ears to protect them from their screams of joy and his eyes twitched as the two men in green jumpsuits hugged each other, with tears of joy and presumably youth flowing down their cheeks.

"I have to be on my way again, my young student! Keep the spirit of youth up for me too!" Gai said as he struck his nice-guy pose again and ran off.

"Ossu!" Lee saluted his sensei.

Naruto stopped covering his ears once Gai was out of sight and looked awkwardly at Lee, "You know, I wasn't finished talking yet..."

"Ah! Sorry, Naruto-kun! That was so hip of Gai-sensei to appear out of nowhere so I was distracted for a moment there!"

"Ah...right...Listen, I heard some kind of rumor of you...askingSakurachanoutonadateforValentine'sDay. "

"Naruto-kun...Even though I'm burning with the spirit of youth...I couldn't follow a single word you just said..." Lee looked dumbfounded at Naruto.

Naruto scraped his throat, feeling rather embarrassed for some reason to be asking about this, "I heard a rumor of you asking Sakura-chan out for Valentine's Day."

"Ah! How did you know that?!"

"Er...Well...uhm..." Naruto looked away and tried to find the right explanation that only slightly deviated from the truth, "_I can't tell him I eavesdropped on their conversation, can I...?_"

"I know! Neji told you, didn't he?! Ooooooh! That's why he's my eternal rival! He knew I was getting strong enough to beat him and thus he wanted to have something that he could use to beat me with! By using henge no jutus and transforming into Sakura-san, I'd be so charmed by her beauty that I would be unable to continue fighting!"

"Er...Yeah something like that...Anyway, what did she answer?"

"Huh? What Sakura-san said when I asked her out?"

Naruto firmly nodded in reply.

"Well I kind of forgot exactly how she said it but it basically came down to...'I have to think about it, sorry I can't say yes or no right now.' or something like that." Lee said as he tried to recall the exact events from the day before.

"Ah! Is that so? I see, I see!" Naruto replied and grinned widely.

"Naruto-kun..."

"...Yeah?"

"We're running behind schedule with our laps!"

"Ehm...You are, I'm going to most likely quit after one lap..."

"Doesn't matter! We must now run this entire lap at twice our usual speed because we've wasted so much time!"

Lee started rushing off as it took Naruto some time to have his brain figure out that they needed to start run,"Hey! Wait for me, Fuzzy Eyebrows!"

"The spirit of youth doesn't wait, Naruto-kun! Not now! Not ever!"

After Naruto's first lap, he felt the juices flowing trough his body and just as Lee said, he felt more energetic. He didn't want to keep up with Lee's insanely high pace, however, so he simply jogged around Konoha until it was around 9 AM.

He said his goodbye to Lee somewhere along the way, when Lee passed him by for what seemed the millionth time, and headed off towards Ayame. Naruto grinned widely as he jumped from roof to roof, "Hehe. I'm really awake and enegetic now! I'm going to surprise Ayame-chan with my motivation to get this started!"

Once he reached Ayame's house, Naruto recalled what Ayame's mom was like and would most likely be wondering why he had come over this early in the morning. And that was something he wanted to avoid at all costs.

"Well, if I can enter her room without her mom noticing, then it would save me a lot of trouble, right...? Besides I can surprise Ayame-chan even more then." Naruto grinned as he ran to the back of the house and made his way up to Ayame's bedroom window.

He noticed that Ayame was still sound asleep, so he carefully opened the window and jumped in before calling out in a cheerful voice to wake the girl up, "Good morning Ayame-chan!"

Ayame blinked a couple of times and slowly rose up from her bed, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, "...Naruto-kun?"

"Sorry for coming over so early, but you know...last night, I couldn't sleep at all so I got up early and was tired of waiting so I...?"

Naruto tilted his head sideways and blinked a couple of times as he noticed that Ayame had bare arms and a bare back with her sheets only covering up her front. Ayame blinked a couple of times at Naruto, still obviously half asleep as well.

Her sheets slowly started to slide off her body, right before she woke up everyone in Konoha with a loud scream, "KYAAAAAA!"

Naruto covered his ears and closed his eyes until Ayame stopped screaming. When he looked back up at Ayame, she was lying back down in her bed with the sheets pulled all the way up over her mouth, but despite that he could still see the bright red blush on her cheeks.

"What the hell are you doing in my room?!" Ayame demanded to know

"Ehm...Waking you...up?" Naruto hesitantly replied.

"What time is it right now?"

"Er...Probably...after nine."

"Do you realise how lucky you are? My mother and father left only an hour ago!"

"Hehe, talk about good timing then...Your mother is scary, you know. That is why I came trough your window instead of knocking on the front door and all...But...Why aren't you wearing any pajamas or a nightgown or something?" Naruto sheepishly grinned and rubbed the back of his head.

"Because it just so happens that _some _girls like to sleep fully naked. _Some_ girls like to think that _no one, _especially certain blond shinobi, would suddenly come into her room while they're sleeping. Some girls _want _to sleep _comfortably_ without a boy suddenly appearing in their room!"

"Wait...did you just say that...YOU ARE TOTALLY NAKED UNDER THERE?!" Naruto yelled as he just realised that the only thing covering Ayame was a bunch of sheets. Scenes from the dream he had all night long flashed through his head and he felt his heart skip a beat.

Ayame pulled her sheets slightly up and looked towards her body, "Yep. Totally naked unless you think of pubic hairs as clothing. Which, I assure you, they are not."

Naruto was fossilized on the spot, his jaw dropping to he floor as Ayame stared at him, with her sheets pulled all the way over her nose this time, only showing her eyes and some of locks of her hair. A breeze came trough the still open bedroom window and blew trough Naruto's hair, who was still unable to move a single muscle.

"Now go and make me some breakfast to make up for your rude way to wake me up! I'm going to get dressed..." Ayame pointed towards the door with one arm and Naruto slowly turned his head towards her door.

His eyes traced down her arm and noticed that her sheets had slightly shifted, revealing the start of her right breast.

"Gaaaaaaaaaah!"

Unable to take the sight of Ayame's smooth skin after the dreams he'd been having, blood shot out of Naruto's nose and launched him trough the open window, crashing down on the ground below. Ayame stood up from her bed, wrapping the sheets around her body to cover herself up and ran towards the window, looking down below towards the fallen Naruto, who was still very much alive, though you wouldn't have guessed from the amount of blood running out of his nose.

"Naruto-kun, are you okay?!" She yelled as she leaned out of the window, her previous anger replaced with concern for the young shinobi.

"I'm okay...Just open the front door or something so I can get back in..." Naruto motioned towards the front of Ayame's house, "And please for the love of god, hurry up and put on some clothes that cover you up!"

A while later, both of them were sitting in the kitchen, Ayame fully dressed and Naruto with a couple of paper plugs stuffed in his nostrils. Ayame was busy making some waffles as she figured that Naruto probably wouldn't be able to cook or make a decent breakfast.

"Geez, looks like I was right last night after all. You ARE a pervert."

"No, I'm not! It just happened to be the first time to be in the same room with a naked girl and seeing..." Naruto paused, "...Places you don't normally get to see on a girl..."

"You saw me yesterday in a top and that didn't cover up all that much either, you know...Enough to be decent, but it was meant to bring out my curves." Ayame told him.

"That wasn't fully exposed! And today I knew you had nothing to cover it up, so I...!" Naruto retorted and then softly added, "Remembered my dream from last night...Wish I hadn't read that cursed Icha Icha Paradise...stupid Ero-sennin with his talks about Yondaime being to the first to read it and all..."

"It's alright, it's not like I can blame you entirely for what happened just now...Just remember, the next time you plan on waking me up, you should make sure I'm properly covered by my bed sheets or that I'm lying down with my sheets covering me." Ayame said as she gave Naruto his waffles and sat down across him with her own batch.

"But like...when you sleep, you are already covered up properly right? So I just shouldn't suddenly wake you, right?" Naruto asked.

"Well, I sometimes move in my sleep...So my sheets might shift and all..." Ayame said and then took a bite of her waffle, "You know what? Just...don't casually walk into my room without my permission."

Naruto thought about that, picturing Ayame in his head with her sheets shifted and right before his thoughts carried him back towards the image of Ayame being covered only by her bedsheets, he quickly shook his head fiercely to forget about it.

"But, I still don't really get why girls would sleep without clothing..." Naruto said as he took a bite of his own waffle.

"Because bra's and panties are annoying to sleep in about 99 percent of the time." Ayame said as she showed Naruto one of the straps of her bra.

Naruto let out a question in response before he even realised it, "...Shouldn't you like not show me stuff like that unless we're really close?"

Ayame slightly blushed and then looked away with her eyes shut,"Idiot...I-I need to teach you about girls and all, right? It's not like I want to stare at it or anything...It's just a bra-strap after all..."

"Ah, about that...Ayame-chan! Can we like, start on the letters right after breakfast?" Naruto asked, flashing a wide grin at the girl.

"Hm? Yeah, of course we can." Ayame smiled back at him, "I for one don't really have anything else to do today other than that."

"Alright then! I'm really excited about all of this! I can't wait to see what their replies will be either!" Naruto said and threw a fist in the air.

"You do remember that we're sending them to all the girls you really know, right? There's no guarantee that you'll end up dating Sakura-chan."

"Of course! I can still learn more about the others, though. This might actually be really fun to do." Naruto snickered at the thought of what kind of funny situations this would potentially create, his mischievous side getting the better of him for a moment.

"Oh, I was thinking last night...You'll have trouble if multiple of the girls want to go out on a date with you, right? After all, once they know it's you, they could tell others and that would mean you'd get in trouble...a lot of trouble."

"Hm, you're right, girls are really scary when they're angry after all...So...What can we do about that?"

"You're a shinobi. You can Henge into anyone you want!"

"That's true but the only non real person I can Henge in is my Sexy no Jutsu."

"What's a...Sexy no jutsu?" Ayame raised an eyebrow and looked at Naruto with a desire to know more.

"You don't know it?" Naruto asked in return.

Ayame shook her head and Naruto grinned widely, "Alright, then how about I just show you?"

Naruto stood up from his seat as Ayame nodded. He cracked his knuckles,"I'll use the improved version since the version I used to defeat old man Sandaime isn't really something I want to show you, to be honest."

Ayame silently looked at Naruto and blinked as he formed the normal Henge seal, "Henge!"

With a loud poof and a lot of smoke, Naruto now stood in his female form, only with a woman's clothes on, unlike usual.

"Wow! That's amazing you look just like a girl!" Ayame shot up from her chair and walked towards Naruto.

"Hehe, It didn't take me really long to make this jutsu. But I don't know if I got everything exactly right..."

"Are you kidding me? You're so cute! Even your voice is that of a woman and sounds like the cutest thing ever!"

Naruto blushed, feeling slightly uncomfortable to be complimented by a girl in this form, as he was used to playing the coy, sexy female to appeal to perverted men like his sensei.

"Even your chest feels so real..." Ayame said as she poked Naruto's chest with one finger.

"I just got that from looking at swimsuit models...It's basically just a henge no jutsu, so it needs to mimic the real thing."

"Wait...I thought you said you had never been in the same room with a naked girl until today?"

"Yeah, that's true. I really didn't up until today."

"But...how did you perfect this technique then?"

"Honestly, I have no clue if it's perfect...I just took the form of a swimsuit model and well...I'm still not a real girl like this, not really. I'm still me."

"But you have a girl's body, so you could have and must have looked at it sometime..." Ayame raised an eyebrow at Naruto.

Naruto canceled the technique and turned back into his normal self, "It still isn't the same as actually being in the same room with a real girl!"

"But it is a girl's body...Plus you can do Kage Bunshin no Jutsu if I remember correctly..." Ayame stared suspiciously at Naruto.

"...S-So?" Naruto asked.

"So, you're telling me that, a teen with raging hormones, that is able to change into this beautiful girl and replicate himself never even so much as..."

Naruto stared at Ayame as she fell silent, the quarter slowly dropping in his mind.

"No! No,no,no NO! What the hell are you thinking about me?!"

"Nothing...Nothing at all..." Ayame smiled and teasingly stuck her tongue out at him.

Naruto felt confused, and unable to grasp what was going through the mind of ramen chef's daughter.

"Let's go back up to my room so we can start on those letters, Naruto-kun." Ayame suggested as she picked up her and Naruto's plate of waffles.

Shortly after, they were both sitting with their legs crossed on Ayame's bed, both with a plate of waffles on their lap, and were staring at a bunch of empty scrolls.

"Who shall we write the first letter to?" Ayame asked as she grabbed a scroll, a pencil and a bottle of ink.

Without hesitation, Naruto raised his fist into the air and cheerfully called out, "Sakura-chan!"

"Alright then..." Ayame opened the scroll, dipped her pencil into the ink and started writing, "Dear Sakura, You must wonder by now who this letter is from and why I sent it to you. I've written this letter because I'd want to tell you how much I adore...no, love everything about you."

Ayame looked up from the scroll towards Naruto, "How's that for starters?"

Naruto rose his trademark fox grin and nodded,"Good! More!"

"Naruto-kun...If it were that easy I wouldn't need you to be here."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know what you like about Sakura-chan. This is the part where we need to put it into words what you like about her."

"Ah, I see!" Naruto closed his eyes for a second then opened them again and looked towards the ceiling, "I like Sakura-chan because..."

"She's Sakura-chan!" Naruto said grinning widely, but Ayame hung her head in disappointment.

"What? Did I say something wrong?" Naruto asked, sounding slightly surprised.

"That's not it, Naruto-kun. You need to say it with sparkles in your eyes, like you are in heaven. What are the things about Sakura-chan that make you feel like that?" Ayame demonstrated her sparkling eyes to Naruto, who simply just stared at her in confusion.

"Hm...I don't know...I just like her."

"Well, this isn't really helping. We'll have to do this another way..."

Ayame put her hand in front of Naruto's eyes, "Hey! Why are you covering my eyes!"

"Close your eyes, Naruto-kun, and relax..."

"Hmmm.." Naruto let out as he followed Ayame's commands, "Alright, they're closed. Now what?"

"Imagine that you are on a field of grass, stretching out as far as the eye can see. You have a clear blue sky overhead and pink fluffy clouds are slowly drifting from one place to another, as a soft breeze gently blows in your face..." Ayame whispered into Naruto's ear.

"Why must the clouds be pink?" Naruto asked with a mildly annoyed look on his face.

"Because I _like_ pink, ok? If you want any other reason, Sakura-chan's hair is pink too. Just imagine the scene, Naruto-kun."

"...I have a bad feeling about this." Naruto remarked, though he didn't budge an inch as he tried to imagine the scene Ayame described.

"Oh, just shut up, Obi wan." Ayame said with a faint smile on her face.

"Now imagine that, all of a sudden, right in front of your face appears the biggest bowl you could possibly imagine, filled to the brim with your favourite ramen."

Naruto nodded and unknowingly started grinning as the image became a lot more vivid in his mind now.

"How big is the ramen bowl, Naruto-kun?" Ayame asked, looking at Naruto with mixture of amusement and a strange kind of bliss of her own.

"Huge! Bigger than the Hokage statues!" Naruto exclaimed excitedly and Ayame did her best not to chuckle and break Naruto's concentration. She leaned in closer and gently blew against Naruto's forehead, making the few locks that were in front of his head waver back and forth.

"This is amazing, Ayame-chan! I can even feel the wind now! What kind of jutsu are you using?" Naruto asked and Ayame couldn't help but giggle.

"I'm not a shinobi, Naruto-kun. I can't use ninjutsu or genjutsu. Now, I want you to run up that bowl in your mind and jump into the sweet, delicious ramen. It's your favourite flavor, after all and there seems to be enough for you to eat as much as you wish."

"Ramen! My ramen!" Naruto exclaimed as he saw himself running up that huge bowl of ramen and diving into the broth.

"Alright, now...Continue thinking about nothing but that large amount of ramen and open your eyes."

"Okay!" Naruto exclaimed.

Ayame removed her hand from Naruto's eyes, revealing two large shining eyes that seemed to never stop sparkling.

"Good job, Naruto-kun! Now, while you are swimming in all that delicious ramen, eating it every now and then, because you simply love ramen...Tell me exactly what you like about Sakura-chan." Ayame said as she grabbed the scroll she was going to write the letter on.

"Her beautifull green eyes! And her pink hair that seems to be like from some kind of princess because of how clean and shines in the sun!" Naruto said and Ayame quickly started writing his thoughts down.

"What else do you like about her?" She asked as she was almost done with the previous two lines.

"Her body! Because even though it doesn't stand out from the average girl our age, it still makes her look beautiful and amazing!"

"What about her personality?"

"She's smart, the smartest girl I know! And really hard-working! The way she smiles makes me want to do nothing but smile back at her! Also, even though she puts on a tough front, I know that deep down inside she's really sweet!"

Ayame feverishly wrote everything Naruto told her down on the scroll, making slight changes here and there to make his thoughts more fit for a letter. Upon reaching the end of the letter though, she paused for the first time since she started moving her pencil.

"From...Naruto? What shall we call you?" Ayame asked but to no avail as Naruto was stuck in his illusionary world and continued chanting, "Ramen heaven! I'm in heaven! Filled with ramen!"

Ayame blinked and then it hit her, "Of course! Ramen!"

She quickly wrote down the last line on the letter to Sakura, "From Nemar with love."

Deciding to keep up the pace from here, and also slightly out of fear that Naruto wouldn't be able to enter this state easily a second time, she continued asking Naruto what he liked about each girl he knew until she had fully written every letter.

"Alright, Naruto-kun. You can stop thinking about the giant bowl of ramen now." Ayame said smiling as she put the fifth scroll aside and put away her pencil and ink.

"Huh?" Naruto blinked, "Oh...uh...How many more do we need to write?"

"We finished all of them already." Ayame smiled at Naruto and pointed to the five scrolls, "We've been sitting here for a couple of hours by now."

"What?! But I...How...I don't even remember..." Naruto looked dumbfounded at the scrolls

"Well, you were kind of in a trance. That huge bowl of ramen kept your thoughts occupied between my questions, that's for sure." Ayame said giggling.

"Oh. I ehehehe." Naruto blushed and let out an embarrassed chuckle before quickly changing the subject, " Speaking of ramen...I'm kind of hungry."

"You're right...It's almost lunch time, I could use a bit too. First, however! I want to show you what I've written in the letters." Ayame said with a big smile on her face before she grabbed the scroll that was designated towards Sakura. She rolled it out, took a deep breath and recited Naruto's thoughts about Sakura back to him.

___Dear Sakura,_

___You must wonder by now who this letter is from and why I sent it to you. _

___I've written this letter because I'd want to tell you how much I adore...no, love everything about you.____  
The way your beautiful emerald eyes gaze upon the world,  
The way it seems like I'm being enchanted as I look at the wind blowing trough your beautiful pink hair, like you are a princess longing for her prince.  
And even though it seems like something average to the common eye, when I see you I see nothing but your beauty.  
Not just your outer beauty, but also your inner beauty and strengths.  
Your wits stand out from others and I know you are hardworking, trying to do your best to live up to Hokage-sama's expectations.  
That is why I'd like to ask you,  
Would you like to go out on a date with me?  
I understand that this is somewhat odd, as you've never seen nor spoken with me directly,  
But the words I have written in this letter are my sincerest feelings.  
I have included an address at the end to which you can send me your reply.  
It is not where I live, for I wish to remain anonymous for the time being.  
____My friend who lives there will give me your reply letter, so you need not worry, for I'll know when your reply has arrived._

___From Nemar with love._

"Amazing!...You're absolutely amazing, Ayame-chan! I need to learn to talk like that or something! Your old man was right after all, you really do know your stuff!" Naruto exclaimed once Ayame finished reading the letter to him.

"Thank you, Naruto-kun." Ayame said as she put the scroll back down and smiled at Naruto, "I supose we still have to teach you a lot, but all in due time. You'll manage somehow, regardless."

"By the way...What's up with this name for me? Nemar..." Naruto asked somewhat confused.

"Well, you were continuously chanting about ramen as I was finishing that letter so I thought, why not spell it backwards and use that as your alias?" Ayame said smiling.

"Ah, I see...I suppose ramen is a hint to my true identity too, but it sounds good to me!" Naruto nodded and grinned widely, "So...what about the other letters?"

"Here, you can read them for yourself." Ayame said as she handed Naruto one of the other four scrolls.

___Dear Ino,_

___I'll tell you right away, I've been watching over you for sometime now.  
Rest assured, I have no bad intentions at all, quite the opposite in fact.  
I couldn't bear to keep silent any longer about what has been in my mind for quite some time now and that is why I am writing you this letter.  
The prettiest among flowers will always catch many eyes and mine is just one of the many sets of eyes directed at you.  
However, unlike other eyes, mine do not wander away and forget about you, as among all flowers in existence,  
You are and will stay my favourite one.  
Your blonde hair and beautiful blue eyes intoxicate me every time I see you.  
If you would wear a white gown, I'd call you an angel amongst angels.  
I wonder, will an angel like you want to go out on a date with me? I know we have never directly met or spoken, but you have me enchanted me nonetheless.  
Whatever your choice is, please let me know by replying to this letter.  
Let me know if you want someone that holds you in his arms like the delicate flower you are and if I'm that person fortunate enough to do so.  
Don't try to seek me out, the address I included is of a dear friend of mine, who will carry the message on to me._

___From Nemar with love._

___My sweet Tenten,_

___I've known you for some years by now, and I must say that you've become more beautiful with each passing day since I first met you.  
Truth be told, I feel as if I don't really know you at all. I feel like there is so much more to you than what I do know about you right now.  
You are a mystery to me in many ways, and I want nothing more than to unravel that mystery.  
Not only to see what's beyond there, but to add to the wonderful person I already know.  
You are a sweet, sweet girl and I can't help but feel lost in time and space when I think about ____your sweet chocolate brown eyes.  
Your beauty is a reflection of your sweetness, one that leaves me thirsting for more of that same sweetness you have in your heart.  
I want to know you better than anyone knows you but you yourself.  
Therefore, I would like to ask you out on a date to get to know you.  
Please, let me find out about what's hidden deep inside of you, where I know I will find more sweetness and hope to find a whole lot more than that. The address I included is of a dear friend, who will deliver your reply to me, so please do not seek me out, as I wish to remain hidden for a while longer._

___From Nemar with love._

___My lovely Hinata_

___My pearl eyed Princess of the Hyuuga clan,  
By now you must wonder who'd address you like that and I believe you have already figured it out.  
...An admirer.  
Do not doubt your eyes, my princess, for I know you have your uncertainties, I know you are worthy of admiration.  
I've seen how kind at heart you are. I've seen your care for the ones you hold dear.  
I've seen how determined you are to gain strength, but in my eyes you already have what it takes to be truly strong and your strength in that is unrivaled. It is that inner strength of your that I see in your eyes, your care for your friends and your determination to be there for them.  
I only know that you are shy and I know that there is more to you than meets the eye.  
Hobbies, interests...Everyone has them so you must have them too.  
I want to get to know the real you, so would you like to go on a date with me, my dear Princess?  
Whatever you decide, please reply to this letter. The address is not my own, but my dear friend will pass the message on to me from there._

___From Nemar with love._

___To the flower of the Desert, Temari,_

___Only a few flowers blossom in the desert,  
But you, my beautiful Temari, stand out amongst them as the most beautiful one of all.  
Not only as the most beautiful one, but also as the deadliest of all.  
This deadliness is what makes me respect you as one of Sunagakure's strongest kunoichi.  
Your beauty is only rivaled by your wits, which is what made my heart melt like snow in front of the heat of the desert's sun.  
Yet, I see that charming beauty too little to my heart's desire.  
You are from Sunagakure and I'm from Konohagakure.  
I wish I could travel to meet you, but unfortunately I can't.  
Not without knowing one thing before I make such a decision...  
Would you like to go out on a date with me?  
I'll understand if you'll reject my offer for a date, but either way I want to hear your reply as soon as possible.  
Leaf and Sand are allies, but I wish for us become more than that..._

___From Nemar with love._

"Amazing...! These are really great, Ayame-chan! They'll never think those letters are from me!...I can't even believe I really said most of the stuff that you wrote down. Did I really...?" Naruto raised a curious eyebrow at Ayame.

"Well, not precisely, of course. The most important parts came straight from your own mouth, though."

"Eh?! Really...? Like which ones?"

"Your beauty and wits is what made my heart melt like snow in front of the heat of the desert's sun. That one, from Temari's letter, is something you pretty much said." Ayame smiled at Naruto and gave him a wink. Feeling somewhat embarrassed, Naruto looked away and simply grinned, being at a loss of words.

"Well then," Ayame got up from her bed and stretched out, "Let's make you some ramen and then bring these babies to the post office."

"That sounds great! Ra~men~! Hehehe!" Naruto happily sang.

"Honestly, Naruto-kun...I hope you manage to contain your love for ramen a bit around these girls." Ayame said and giggled.

"Me and my ramen are inseparable!" Naruto declared, "No ramen, no Naruto!"

"Come on, Ramen-kun. Let's get you some well deserved lunch." Ayame left her room giggling.

Ayame cooked ramen for the both of them, Naruto helping her out as much as he possibly could. After their lunch, they headed out to bring the scrolls to post office and decided to take their time, in order to enjoy the sunny afternoon in Konoha.

"I wonder who'll reply first..." Naruto said as they were nearing the post office.

"We'll just have to wait and see if any of them decide to reply in the first place. Maybe they don't feel like replying or think it's some kind of joke." Ayame shrugged

"They wouldn't think that, the letters you wrote are just too amazing!" Naruto grinned widely.

He then noticed someone familiar up ahead, who also seemed to be heading towards the post office.

"That person is..." Naruto narrowed his eyes.

"Hm? What's wrong, Naruto-kun?" Ayame asked.

"That woman, the one wearing a raincoat. She's that second Chuunin exam examiner I mentioned yesterday, Anko-san."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, no doubt about it. No one else would wear a raincoat on a sunny day, after all."

Ayame pointed towards the post office that was right in front of them, "I'm no shinobi, but she seems to be sharing our destination, doesn't she?"

"Hm, hm. Looks like it." Naruto nodded as he crossed his arms.

"Then, I wish you good luck, Naruto-kun." Ayame said smiling as she gave him a pat on his back.

"Heh? What? Good luck with what?" Naruto looked confused towards Ayame who was still smiling at him.

"Well, remember when I told you that you might be able to learn a thing or two from older, more experienced women?"

"...Yeah, you did say something like that, didn't you?" Naruto started having that bad feeling again. He didn't like that feeling, but he had placed his trust in Ayame so far.

"Well, here's your chance! Go ask her out. For dinner, tonight."

"WHAT?!" Naruto yelled, which definitely drew the attention from the Chuunin examiner and everyone else in the area. Realising his mistake, Naruto quickly pulled himself and Ayame into a nearby alley.

"Why do I have to ask her out for dinner?" Naruto hissed.

"Oh, come on. You have to try to get some experience on your own. I'm just one girl, eh...young woman. And you're already familiar with me, so talking to me isn't that hard, right? You barely know her, so you should try and...you know, get used to talking to girls that you have no clue how to talk to." Ayame explained, placing a hand on Naruto's shoulder, "I know you can do it!"

"But..." Naruto protested, but Ayame placed a finger on his lips.

"No buts, young man. You are going to her right now and talk to her, eventually asking her to join you for dinner tonight. Understood?"

Naruto sighed, "Yes ma'am..."

He looked around the corner, checking the street to see if Anko was still there. It seemed like she had already gone into the post office, however. Naruto gulped and hoped that she wasn't standing right above them, listening to what their conversation just now.

Ayame, oblivious to the potential ninja tactics here, pushed the scrolls into Naruto's arms with a big smile on her face.

"Well then...If you need me, I'll be at the ramen stand. Go get her, Naruto-kun." Ayame's sweet smile seemed to have a slight hint of amusement to it, as if she was looking forward to hearing all about the little adventure Naruto was about to embark on.

"Why do I think that this will become a very weird situation...?" Naruto muttered as Ayame slowly took a few steps back.

Puffing up his chest and taking a deep breath, Naruto stepped out of the alley and quickly threw a glance to the rooftops. Not sensing Anko around in the vicinity, he assumed she must have headed on to the post office already.

He quickly tried to catch up with Anko and finally did so, entering the post office seemingly only a few moments after Anko. Naruto tried to make sure that it looked like he wasn't running up until now, calming the rate at which he breathed as he walked up to Anko and greeted her as casually as he could, "Yo, Anko-san! Long time no see!"

Anko turned around, noticed it was Naruto who called out to her and put on a bigger grin than Naruto expected, "Oh, Long time no see, indeed...You were training with Jiraiya-sama for a long time, weren't you? Well, that doesn't matter really...What does matter is..."

Anko's pause had Naruto a little confused, but what really startled him was Anko suddenly bending over and staring straight into his eyes, her mouth only slightly over an inch away from his own, "Why you are addressing me as Anko-san...?"

"___Crap... this is going to be bad after all...I just know it now..." _Naruto grinned sheepishly and rubbed the back of his head, "What are you talking about, we don't know each other that well, so I have to add san to it, right?"

"Hm hm, that's true...But I'm a sensei, so you should just address me as such."

"Ah, but like...You didn't have your own students and all, so you aren't really a sensei...right?" Naruto replied, "_What the hell am I saying? Am I trying to insult her?!_"

"It's true that I didn't have any subordinates so far nor do I have them now...But I'm still a sensei..." Anko said as she moved her face along Naruto's until she reached his ear.

"I could still teach you things you have never dreamed even off...or perhaps you have..." Anko whispered into his ear as she ran a finger along Naruto's cheek.

"A-ah...Really? Is that so? Then...eh...I guess I'll have to call you Anko-sensei after all."

"That's right, Naruto...You can call me Anko-___sensei_." Anko walked away from Naruto again and Naruto quickly followed.

"Hey, hey, hold up for a moment here. Why are you at the postal office Anko...sensei." Naruto added the last part a little later as he had the weird feeling that her definition of sensei was different from his own.

"Me? I'm waiting for a certain special parcel of mine, it should have come in today...What about you, huh? You seem to be carrying an awful lot of scrolls there..." Anko leered at Naruto, making him feel slightly more uncomfortable than he was feeling already.

"Ah, these? They're for a...an errand! Yeah, an errand! I need to send them for...for someone I know!"

"Really? An errand, huh?" Anko smiled wryly upon hearing his answer.

"Yeah, yeah, that's right! An errand!"

"I see." Anko grinned once more and turned her back towards Naruto.

Apparently having decided to finish her business at the postal office, Anko headed towards to the counter. Behind it was an old lady, who seemed to have fallen asleep.

"Hey, granny, hurry up and wake up." Anko said.

The woman seemed to easily sleep through it though, as she did not so much as twitch. Naruto was about to speak up to the chuunin examiner, when she slammed her fist on the counter, causing the old lady to wake up and almost leap up from her chair.

"Ah! Anko-chan!" She let out once her old eyes landed on Anko, "Here for the usual?"

"Is it here?!" Anko asked with an overly amount of excitement in both her tone of voice and in her eyes. Naruto took a small step back when he saw the large grin Anko had on her face.

"Ah, I'm sorry, my dear...It hasn't arrived yet. I suppose we might have it tomorrow...My boys have been very busy. They have been sorting the mail out all day today, but your usual package wasn't amongst today's parcels."

"Oh...I was looking forward to having it today already..." Anko's previous excitement had completely disappeared in an instant, her grin having turned into a disappointed scowl.

"Well, I'll have one of my sons deliver it to you personally once we have it. They're pretty quick on their feet, you know. But that's what you get when those little rascals try to escape my punishment when they were misbehaving back when they were just over four feet tall."

"Ah...Well, don't start talking about old times, granny. My friend here still needs to have his letters send too." Anko said as she moved aside for Naruto.

"Yeah, these are the scrolls that must be send...If possible, I'd like them to be sent today, please." Naruto said as he laid down the five scrolls.

"Huh...Sure thing, sonny, I'll have them sent. It will cost you extra to have it send today though."

"That doesn't matter. Just hurry up and send them already, please!" Naruto replied as he impatiently jumped from one foot to the other, after all he wanted to get the replies as soon as possible as we;;.

"Alright. sonny. Honestly...youth these days...Anyway that will be 240 yen for all of the scrolls and then another 600 to have them sent today."

"Eeeeeeeh!?"

"What, these are busy times, sonny... You do have money with you, right?" The old woman asked him, her old eyes narrowing to thin slits as she closely eyed Naruto.

"O-of course I do! Just give me one sec..." Naruto said as he started searching his pockets.

As he reached into one of his pockets he felt some money and took it out. Naruto quickly counted the money and let out a sigh of disappointment "...Only 450 yen..."

"How much are you missing?" Anko asked as she bent over beside him to look at the money.

"Eh...1350 yen..." Naruto replied as he checked to make sure he didn't miss more.

"Alright. Here you go then." Anko said as she placed her own money on top of Naruto's.

"Wha-...? Are you sure?" Naruto looked at Anko with sheer disbelief in his eyes.

"Well, where is the deep bow and the 'Thank you Anko-sensei, you are the greatest for helping me out'?" Anko smirked at Naruto, who still couldn't believe she'd pay the majority of his shipping costs for him.

Naruto handed the old lady the money and then turned towards Anko and bowed, "Thank you very much for lending me the money, I'll pay you back once I get my wallet."

Anko smiled and placed a hand on his head, "You're cute, ya know, Naruto."

Naruto looked up towards her and managed to catch a glimpse of what might have been an ominous smirk, but it was as gone as soon as he had noticed it. Still, he couldn't quite shake the creepy feeling he was getting from the supposed teacher.

"Well, ok, sonny...They'll be sent today. The ones for Konoha will be delivered later this afternoon and the one to Sunagakure will most likely arrive somewhere between tonight and tomorrow, I believe...It's been a long time anyone sent something to Sunagakure..." The old woman said as she took the scrolls and left with them and the money towards a back room.

Anko let her hand slide off Naruto's head as she turned around and started walking back towards the exit. Naruto rose up from his bowed position and remembered what Ayame had asked him to do. He still had his doubts due to Anko's behaviour still making him feel creeped out, but he decided that she has been nice enough so far.

As he quickly caught up with Anko, Naruto called out for her, "Uhm...Really, thank you for paying for me. It would've been a pain to run back home and then back here again."

"Don't mention it. I don't want you to pay me back either, all right? It's on me, just this once."

"Uh-uhm..."

Anko looked towards Naruto, who was scratching the back of his head.

"What's the matter?" She asked.

"Well...Ehm...er...Would you like to go out for dinner with me tonight?" Naruto still felt somewhat embarrassed to ask this from a woman that was much older than him.

"My..." Anko, smirking widely, she stopped walking and leaned against the wall, crossing her arms as she did so, "This IS a surprise...Why are you asking me out to dinner...Naruto-___kun..._?"

"Well...uhm...like...how should I say this..."

"Ooooh...Could it be?" Anko threw a devilish smirk at Naruto, "Could it be that Naruto-kun has a crush on his ___Anko-sensei..._?"

"No, no, no! It's not like that! I like you but not that way! No! Really!" Naruto protested, frantically waving his arms at her.

"No need to be embarrassed, Naruto-___kun_...I don't mind a teacher-student romantic relationship..."

"It's not like that! Seriously!" Naruto knew his face was flushing bright red, and he felt as if it was only making him seem even more unbelievable than before.

"If it's not that, then why are you asking me out for dinner?" Anko said as she slightly bend over, wrapping her arms tighter around her body and squeezing her breasts together.

"Like..er...I need some help getting used to dating and stuff...and someone's helping me out...and told me to ask someone older out for a dinner somewhere so I could like...know more about women and...stuff..." Naruto said as he fidgeted with his fingers, turning his face away from Anko, yet he couldn't help but sneak glances at her every now and then as he spoke to her.

"Oh, is that it...?" Anko asked as she kicked off against the wall and brought her lips close to Naruto's ear.

"I told you I could teach you things you most likely never even dreamed off...Naruto-kun..." Naruto heard her whisper, her warm breath tickling his ear as he looked at her from the corner of his eyes. The words made him freeze on the spot.

Anko gently grabbed his chin and made him look into her eyes "Pick me up in front of the Hokage's Tower at seven..."

She placed a single finger on his lips. "Don't be late like Kakashi-kun did..."

"He still regrets it to this day I believe..." Anko whispered and gave Naruto a kiss on his cheek before walking out of the postal office.

"_Did she just call Kakashi-sensei, ____Kakashi-kun?! What the hell is up with that woman...?! And did she just k-k-kiss me on my cheek?!_" Naruto touched his cheek when he was sure that Anko was out of sight.

Before Naruto walked out of the postal office, he took a few moments to recollect himself and let his heart slow down to a normal rate. Just as he stepped out of the postal office, Jiraiya jumped down in front of him, "Yo, Finally done huh?"

"Ah! Ero-sennin! What are you doing here?!" Naruto shouted and pointed at Jiraiya.

"I told you to stop calling me that, god damn it!" Jiraiya loudly whispered to him as a couple of people were staring at him.

"I don't care. I'm going to call you what you are. Anyway, what are you doing here?" Naruto asked as he crossed his arms.

"Well...Training won't be needed for a while since you've gotten your time off...And there aren't that much missions for you to go on from what I've heard from Tsunade. So, you will have all the time in the world for your little girlfriend."

"I don't _have _a girlfriend." Naruto retorted as he glared at Jiraiya.

"Well...That's true, at the moment...But you are going out on dates with that Ayame girl. You even promised her a second one..." Jiraiya said with a proud grin on his face.

"So what?! At least I'm getting dates! I have one tonight as well, you know." Naruto replied ferociously, letting his mouth run before his brain again. When he realized that Jiraiya might just show up at his date tonight too, he flinched at his mistake.

"Ah...So that's why Ayame seemed so happy when I saw her at Ichiraku's Ramen..." Jiraiya grinned at Naruto, whose eyes widened.

"But...I'm not going out on a date with Ayame-chan tonight...? Did she think we were going to?" Naruto asked and blinked.

"Hm...You're not? She was smiling when she told me that you were at the postal office..." Jiraiya rubbed his chin for a moment and then looked at Naruto again, "If you're not going out on a date with her, then who are you taking out...?"

"Anko-s-...an." Naruto tried to sound as casual as possible

Jiraiya's mouth dropped open, "Anko?!"

"Yeah, Anko." Naruto nodded.

"Anko as in Mitarashi Anko, Anko?" Jiraiya asked again.

"Hm, hm." Naruto nodded twice.

"Thé Mitarashi Anko?"

"Yeah, Mitarashi Anko, Jounin level shinobi, examiner at my second chuunin exam about two and a half years ago." Naruto confirmed nodding as he summed up everything he knew about Anko.

Jiraiya was speechless for a couple of moments, needing to let it all sink in that his student, Uzumaki Naruto, container of the feared Kyuubi had scored a date with Mitarashi Anko.

Jiraiya dropped both his hands on Naruto's shoulders and tightened his grip on him, "How? Really, how the heck did you do it?"

"Ehm...I just asked her?" Naruto replied, "_I'm not entirely sure why she agreed myself either..._"

"And how did she answer? Tell me!"

"...I'm not going to tell you..." Naruto crossed his arms and looked away from his teacher.

Jiraiya pouted and let go off Naruto, "Naruto, why won't you tell me?"

"Because then you'd know when I'm having my date exactly and you'd come screw it up like you did last night! Not to mention give me a night without sleep again..." Naruto nodded firmly.

"A night without sleep...?" Jiraiya repeated and raised an eyebrow at Naruto before raising a wide grin when he realised what Naruto meant, "You read it."

"Huh? What?" Naruto let out.

"You read my book, you read Icha Icha Paradise!"

"No! I didn't read that perverted book! It's full of stuff I wish I didn't know!" Naruto quickly retorted.

"I see, you read it...You just said so yourself...You wish you didn't know the stuff in it...But you do know it, meaning you've read it." Jiraiya said grinning and nodding, "Ah, it's all right...You should have seen Yondaime's first reaction to it...Though he could actually pull something like that off, unlike you."

"What? What did Yondaime do?"

"Ahaha...Let's not talk about something like that in public, shall we? Let's just say that I've never seen his female team-mate smiling that much after he had used _that _technique and it's all thanks to my book. It's too good for the world, sometimes." Jiraiya said nodding.

"...Right, whatever you say, Ero-sennin...Well, I'm off now. I've got things to take care off before going out on a date with Anko-sensei." Naruto said and walked off.

When Naruto was out of sight, Jiraiya rubbed in his hands grinned pervertedly, "Hehehehe...Finally! I can get that little nymph thanks to Naruto telling me the secret to get a date with her...ehehehe..."

Later that afternoon, mail was delivered throughout Konoha and Hinata received the mail for her family that day.

"Ehm...There's two scrolls for father...then there's...Neji-niisan, Neji-niisan, Neji-niisan and..." Hinata said to herself as she took a look at the scrolls and her eyes widening at the last scroll, "One for...Me? I...received mail?"

Hinata quickly went to her father to deliver his mail.

"Father, mail has arrived for you again today." Hinata said as she found him meditating in one of his many meditation chambers.

"Thank you for bringing the mail, Hinata..." Hiashi said without opening his eyes or moving any muscle other than what was needed to speak up.

Hinata laid down her father's mail in front of him and backed up a bit, "Uhm...Father? Do you know where Neji-niisan is?"

"In the garden..."

"Thank you, Father..." Hinata bowed for her father, before quietly leaving his chamber.

Once she had closed the door behind her, she let out a sigh of relief. Her father had scolded her often enough when she interrupted his meditation before for 'trivial' things such and she was glad that this time it wasn't like that. He must have been in a good mood for some reason, she concluded.

Hinata quickly headed onwards towards the garden, where she indeed found Neji and, as per usual, he was training.

"Uhm...Neji-niisan..." Hinata said as she stepped off the porch and onto the grass of their beautiful garden.

Neji stopped his Jyuuken training, lowered his hands and without looking directly at her he spoke up, "Mail for me again, huh?"

Hinata shyly nodded and Neji let out a sigh, "Fine then, throw them at me."

"Why throw them? I mean...they could be important...and...such."

"Hurry up and just throw them...I promised Tenten to help her with her training, so I have to leave soon. I'd like to finish my daily Jyuuken exercises before that..."

"O-ok then..." Hinata said and threw Neji's three scrolls at him.

"Jyuuken!" Neji let out as he activated his Byakugan and hit the three scrolls with a couple of Jyuuken strikes, knocking them back trough the air.

Hinata followed the scrolls with her eyes as they landed straight up in a pattern a long with more scrolls that were already standing there.

"Konoha's mark? How come you have made it here in our garden out of scrolls...O-or rather...where did you get them? N-not f-from my room, r-right?" Hinata asked as she noticed that Neji had a bunch of scrolls lined up in a pattern that created the mark of Konoha.

"No, I wouldn't do something as going through your room...A bunch of Jounin kunoichi came by earlier and all of them decided that they wanted me as their Valentine for Valentine's Day...So, I decided to make good use of the scrolls instead of reading all their cries for wanting affection from me..."

"Ah...I see..." Hinata said, "___I'm saved...If he got my scrolls he might have read the things I wrote about Naruto-kun...He'd never stop teasing me and Naruto-kun if he found out..._"

"Hm...?"

"Uh...Something wrong, Neji-niisan?"

"You forgot one scroll..." Neji pointed towards the scroll still in Hinata's hands.

"Ah this...This is one for me." Hinata said as she looked at the scroll.

"You got mail? That's a surprise." Neji smirked before continuing his Jyuuken exercise.

"Ah...yeah...I guess..." Hinata said as she looked at Neji before looking back at the scroll, "___C-could it be that it's from Naruto-kun?...No, he'd never write to me...Oh, I wish he would write to me, even if it was only once..."_

Hinata walked back to the porch and sat down with the scroll. She hesitantly and carefully opened the scroll. Once she had it fully open, Hinata began to read what was written in the scroll and after she had read the second sentence, she fainted.

Neji, who noticed Hinata fainting, quickly ran towards her, "Hinata-sama!"

"What happened?! Hang in there." Neji said as he shook Hinata a couple of times and then he looked towards the scroll, "___That scroll...It must contain somekind of toxic!"_

Neji knocked the scroll out of her hands and just then Hinata woke up again, "No!"

Hinata jumped up, grabbed the scroll mid-air and crashed into Neji's Mark of Konoha piece of scroll art.

"..." Neji stared at blankly at her before speaking up, "Why did you just faint exactly?"

"Ah...well...that is...uhm..." Hinata blushed as she stood back and dusted herself off with one hand while tightly clutching onto the scroll with the other.

"What's written in that scroll?" Neji asked as he raised an eyebrow at her.

"That's none of your business!" Hinata yelled at him before running off to her room with a bright red face.

"...___What's up with her?" _Neji thought as he stared after her, though making no effort to follow her.

Once Hinata had stormed into her room, she closed the door behind her quickly sat down on her bed, just in case she'd faint again, and opened the scroll again.

"___Could it really be...from Naruto-kun?" _Hinata thought as she continued reading the letter.

'No...It isn't Naruto-kun..." Hinata said disappointed as she finished reading the letter with a flushed face, trying her best not to faint again.

"...What should I do...?" Hinata pressed the scroll against her chest, "Someone likes me...But I like Naruto-kun...I-I need to reply to him and tell him that I...like Naruto-kun. But if I write that...won't he get mad and maybe...try to hurt Naruto-kun? No, no! I don't want him to hurt Naruto-kun...Then...Maybe..."

Hinata stood up from her bed, walked to her desk, grabbed an empty scroll, some ink and a pencil before sitting down and looking at the scroll, trying to come up with what she should write in reply to the love letter.

After about half an hour, Hinata was finally satisfied with her letter and rolled the scroll up.

"Hinata-sama?" Neji's voice came from the other side of her bedroom door.

"Ye-yes, Neji-niisan?"

"Just checking up on you. Sounds like you did not faint again. If you're alright, I'm leaving for my meeting with Tenten now."

"Ah...Neji-niisan? Do you happen to walk past the postal office before heading towards the training grounds?"

"The postal office isn't exactly on my route...And I'm already slightly late."

"Ah, I understand. Have a safe trip." Hinata said as she got up from her seat.

"Hn..." Neji replied.

Hinata stood next to her seat, holding on to it with one hand and the letter she had just written with the other, waiting until she could no longer hear Neji's footsteps. She let out a sigh of relief.

"I guess I'll have to send it myself then?" Hinata whispered as she looked at the scroll.

Tenten was running as fast as she could towards the training grounds where she promised to meet up with Neji.

"___Oh man...I'm late, I'm late, I'm late! Neji is going to be mad again...! Damn it, I hate it when he gets mad...! He's always extra rough on me during training when he's mad! Then again, it is probably his fault that I'm late in the first place...After all he COULD like me that way...I mean...from time to time he is really kind...and...he DOES look like a person that would write the first part of his name, then decide it's too embarrassing to write his own name and change the last part so it's a different name...I wish I knew a way to find out if he really wrote that letter..." __T_enten pouted.

Her thought were occupied all the way from her home to the training ground with who could have written her a love letter and had the guts to ask her out for a blind date.

Her list of suspects he had narrowed down to just Neji, as she didn't really know who else could fill the criteria to send her a letter like that.

"___...How am I going to find out whether it's him or not...? It's not like I can ask him something like, 'Hey, Neji! Were you the one that sent me that love letter?'...He'd deny it, anyway...Oh! I know! Let's see how he reacts when I hug him when I see him!"_

Tenten was just then nearing the training grounds and even though her plan to find out if Neji had send her a love letter put a smile on her face, once she saw the training grounds coming up, her smile turned into a frown.

"___Though I sure hope he isn't pissed off for me being late..._"

Tenten landed on the training ground and instantly spoke up, "Sorry Neji that I'm late but...Huh? He's not here?" She looked around and saw no one around, not even a single sign that showed that Neji was here before she came.

"What the hell?" She said as she crossed her arms, pouted and turned around.

A couple of seconds later Neji landed in front of her, "Sorry Tenten, I am..." Neji stopped talking as Tenten suddenly embraced him. The Hyuuga prodigy was quite surprised, even though he didn't show in any way other than falling silent.

"You are late." Tenten whispered in Neji's ear with a smile on her face.

"Yeah, sorry...Tenten? Are you feeling...well?" Neji raised an eyebrow as he was unsure what to exactly do right now.

"Yeah. Of course, I am. Why wouldn't I feel alright?"

"Then...what's this for?" Neji asked, still confused by his former team-mate's sudden embrace.

"It's called a hug. You do know what that is, right?"

"...Of course, I do...Might I know why you are giving me a hug? I believed you were feeling unwell or giving me a hug, but even though the latter seemed the more unlikely one, it's true. Which has me now wondering..."

"I needed a hug." Tenten quickly replied before he could finish his line.

Neji blinked and decided just to let Tenten hug him, assuming she just needed it for some reason that was beyond him to understand. However, after two minutes of Tenten not willing to let him go, Neji was starting to feel somewhat uneasy, wondering what anyone would think if they came by and saw them like that, "Er...Tenten? You can let go of me now..."

"Why? I thought you didn't mind if I gave you a hug because I needed one?"

"I didn't say that..."

Tenten slightly pulled back to look at Neji's face, who had an expression of utter confusion,"Do you mind then?"

Neji raised an eyebrow and closed his eyes, thinking over how to answer this.

"Just so you know, a bunch of jounin girls have started stalking me recently, and they'd probably want you dead if they saw you hug me and I didn't do anything about it. Since I consider you a friend of mine, I'd hate to see you get attacked by a bunch of obsessed hippy fangirls...Especially if they happen to be my hiippy fangirls." Neji said as he opened his eyes again.

"Hey! I have an idea! How about we pretend to impersonate Lee and Gai-sensei if anyone spots us! I'll yell 'Gai-sensei!' first and then you'll yell 'Lee!', huh?"

"...Tenten, Even though you say you need a hug, I don't plan on standing here for two hours just hugging you...it would make people...think things...So, how about I..." Neji cleared his throat as he raised an eyebrow at the weapons mistress, "...Give you a hug instead of you hugging me and then we'll start training?"

"Ok, sure." Tenten said with a wide smile on her face and threw herself on Neji again, who wrapped his arms around her giving her a a gentle hug.

"___Women...Something's up with them today...Hinata-sama fainting from and acting strange about some letter; Tenten wanting to hug me...and a large gang of fangirls stalking me at the mansion...I don't undertand any of it at all..._" Neji thought as he hugged Tenten, who tightly hugged him back.


	3. Chapter 3: Way of the Serpent

******A/N:** No Author Notes Edition

******Chapter 3: Way of the Serpent**

Ino was not usually the type to sigh a lot, but today she found them escaping her lips quite often. At first glance, she simply seemed bored with the fact that she had to watch over her family's flower shop. However, she was simply lost in her thoughts, barely paying any attention to shop.

All she could think about was the letter she had received about half an hour ago. She was surprised to find one to her amongst the usual mail intended for her mother and father. Ino had taken the letter to her room and sat down on her bed to read it.

At first, she wasn't impressed at all with the letter, but she felt compelled to read it from beginning to end regardless. It wasn't until after the writer started describing how he thought about her that she couldn't help but melt for his sweet words.

"___Maybe I'm overreacting a bit...But it's been a long time since I liked a guy...not after Sasuke left the Village...and it's been even a longer time since a guy actually liked me...I should really try to go out more often..." _Ino closed her eyes and let out a deep sigh for the umpteenth time that hour, "___Even though I don't know how that Nemar guy looks, he sounds like a dream come true. He's probably a guy that would take a girl in his arms and then, as he held her, he'd whisper in that girl's ear how much he loves her and all...____"_

_Ino hugged herself and pretended to be rocked gently from side to side in what she believed to be 'Nemar's strong arms. She opened her eyes and rested her head on her hand again._

_"____And that type of guy wants to go out on a date with me...? I'm not complaining, but since when do we have guys that can write like that in Konoha?"_

Ino let out another deep sigh and just then her mother came back into the store, "Honey? Are you feeling alright? You don't look so well..."

Ino looked dully at her mom, who returned a worried look at her like she always did when she thought something was wrong with her daughter. Ino shook her head and flashed a smile at her mother, "No, nothing's wrong, mother."

"Well, you still don't look so well. Take a break, I'll watch the store for a while." Her mother gently shooed Ino away from the counter, "Go get some fresh air."

"Alright, I'll go already." Ino said as she headed for the exit of the flower shop, "___Just because you won't stop questioning me until I do...It's not like I have anything else to do today other than watching the store really...I'm not writing that reply until tonight anyway."_

"Then, I'll be gone for a while, mom." Ino said as she reached the door.

"Have a safe trip." Her mother waved her goodbye with a sweet smile on her face.

Ino closed the door behind her and sighed again.

"I really need to find something to do until dinner..." She muttered to herself.

Ino silently wandered around Konoha for a while, her thoughts always being drawn back to the letter and its writer.

"___...He sounds so perfect even though I know he probably isn't...Hm...he didn't write what kind of date he wanted to go on. I guess I could propose a picnic then, so I could eventually lean against him as we'd enjoy the sunny afternoon and listen to the birds chirping._" Ino daydreamed, smiling at the thought of spending an afternoon like that, but that smile quickly turned into a frown when her next thought entered her mind, "___But what if he's like Chouji?! I mean, sure he'd be nice and all but leaning against him would be less nice and well...a whole lot softer than I'd like... I guess ____I'll have to ask what he looks like, what type of build he has and if he dares to lie to me about it, I'll ditch him on our date the instant I see him! Ha, I'm a genius sometimes!"_

Ino's eyes widened as her thoughts drifted off even further as was just about to turn around a corner, "___More importantly, how old is he?! I'm getting my hopes up here, but what if he's like 11 or something! Oh my god, no! Aaah! I can't take it anymore! I...I have to know more about Nema-"_

Ino was literally knocked out of her thoughts as she felt herself bump into someone, followed by the hard ground underneath her. She felt a bit dazed at first, but everything became clear soon after.

"Ow, that smarts." She said, rubbing her sore behind and looked up to find Naruto sitting in a similar position. Naruto was quick to jump to his feet again however.

"Sorry, Ino! I was in a hurry, so I was kind of distracted and didn't see you coming around that corner at all." He apologized and extended his hand towards Ino.

"Naruto, you should have watched where you were going!" Ino replied as she grabbed a hold of his hand, "Well, I wasn't really paying attention either, so I'll forgive you this time."

Naruto helped Ino up to her feet and grinned sheepishly as he rubbed the back of his head, "Hehe...Thanks, I'll try to be more careful from now on."

"Don't worry about it, I kind of needed to be knocked out of my thoughts anyway..."

"Hm, thoughts?" Naruto tilted his head in wonder.

"Ah! Did I say something? It's nothing really, ahaha." Ino said as she bashfully smiled and looked away from him.

"But you know...This really is a coincidence." Naruto said, flashing Ino his fox-like grin.

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"Well...ehm...like...I need to buy some flowers for someone...Or ehm...I was told to do so...so, I thought of you and your family's flower shop and that it would probably be the best place to go to."

"Flowers for someone? Ooooh, I see." Ino smirked widely at Naruto.  
"Hm? What do you mean?" Naruto asked as he blinked at her.

"Naruto...Since when do you have a girlfriend?" Ino asked as she poked Naruto in his side, "___Ah man, even this guy has someone...I'm so going on a date with Nemar-kun."_

"I-I don't have a girlfriend! It's just for a friend who I'm taking out to dinner tonight!" Naruto retorted, feeling his cheeks redden.

"But you know, you only buy flowers when someone's special or as a 'thank you' gift...But, I somehow doubt it's the last one..." Ino teased Naruto a bit more, leering at him with a devilish look.

"Well, it is! Really! It's not for someone special, in that way...Definitely not that way, I'm telling you!" Naruto said as he shook his head.

"Hm, well fine then." Ino decided to halt her interrogation and after taking a deep breath she said, "Let's go back to my family's flower shop to get you a bouquet of flowers in that case."

The two of them walked back towards the flower shop in silence. Ino looked at Naruto at one point when they were nearly at the shop, "___You know...It's actually sort of cute that he's going to buy a bouquet of flowers for someone..."_

"Hey, Naruto?" Ino let out

"Hm? What is it?" Naruto averted his eyes from the road up ahead to look at Ino.

"I'd just want to tell you that I think it's very cute of you to go and buy flowers for someone. It's really something that I didn't expect from someone like you." Ino said, raising a big, honest smile at him.

Naruto smiled back at her, though he wasn't sure what to make of that comment, "Er, Thanks. I'm glad that I know someone as great as you. I don't know a thing about flowers, so I'd be totally lost without you, ehehehe."

Ino averted her eyes from Naruto and blushed a soft shade of red, "_What am I doing? ____Why am I blushing this much from him complementing me? It's not like...I like Naruto that way._"

"___Huh...Is she blush-" _Naruto thought before he ran into a telephone pole, knocking him down on the ground once again.

"Where the hell did that come from?!" Naruto pointed at the telephone pole accusingly, like it decided to pop out of nowhere.

Ino tried to not laugh, but she couldn't help but burst out in laughter before lending Naruto a helping hand to stand back up again.

"Grrr...Really..." Naruto said as he dusted himself off.

"Naruto, you've changed a lot yet you are still the same in many ways, aren't you? It's really funny." Ino said as she tried to contain her laughter by giggling instead of laughing out loud.

"I can't help it. My training did not involve avoiding stray telephones poles." Naruto retorted, causing Ino to laugh out loud once more, though this time Naruto felt like he could join her and laughed just as loud.

Several hours later, at ten for seven, Naruto was anything but laughing. He was running at full speed towards the Hokage's tower with a bouquet in his hands, trying not crush it in his grip or have it blown away with the wind.  
He had exchanged his normal white t-shirt and orange-black jacket for a black shirt and left his jacket back home, but the entire ordeal took him longer than he had expected.

Naruto knew one thing for sure, he did not want to be late, no matter what. As he landed in front of the tower though, he was mildly reassured yet ticked off as well.

"What the...? She isn't even here yet." Naruto said as he looked around, trying to spot Anko.

Naruto peered into the hall of the Hokage's Tower to find a clock and before long he found one, telling him it was exactly five minutes to 7, "Damn, I could have taken a bit longer to get here."

Exactly when the clock struck 7 o'clock, Anko came casually walking out of the Hokage's Tower, wearing the same outfit as she always did.

"Oh, You're already waiting for me." Anko smirked as she saw Naruto, "I guess you really want to go, huh?"

"Hehehe, Yeah something like that..." Naruto replied with a grin as wide as he could manage, "___More like being afraid of whatever you might do to me if I showed up late or not at all..._"

"Oh! Here! I bought these for you." Naruto said as he handed Anko the bouquet, "They're purple..e.r...what do you call 'em again...damn Ino told me me...hm...But I can't remember at all what their name is."

"Awww...thank you. That's really sweet of you. Purple is one of my two favourite colors, you know. You shouldn't have..." Anko said as she took the bouquet and inhaled the sweet scent of the flowers.

"Ah, it's ok. It's nothing, really." Naruto said with a sheepish grin on his face.

"No really, you shouldn't have. I have no idea where to put this in my apartment." Anko gave Naruto a rather embarrassed smile.

"Oh...I see." Naruto replied, "_Well, at least she's happy with them...I suppose."_

"Can you just wait here for me? I want to bring these home. I'll just have to put them in the sink until I can go buy a vase tomorrow or something...I don't really get flowers that often, haha." Anko laughed.

"Ehm...Sure." Naruto nodded in reply.

Anko smiled and winked at him, "Then I'll be back soon."

With that, Anko disappeared out of sight and Naruto was left alone in front of the Hokage's Tower.

Naruto wasn't exactly the type to be patient, but he didn't want to have Anko chasing after him, so he stayed put. However, before he knew it, fifteen minutes had passed and he was impatiently tapping his foot on the ground and scouting the area for any sign of the Chuunin examiner.

"___Damn...It's already been fifteen minutes...Is she really going to come back?" _Naruto thought as he paced back and forth through the street, "What's keeping her...Is her apartment like on the other side of the Village?"

Just then Naruto heard footsteps approaching, making him turn his head towards the sound of it, where he was greeted with a quick, "Sorry for the wait."

Anko stood in front of him once again, though she was now wearing an orange kimono instead of her standard raincoat outfit.

"I decided to put on a kimono and some make-up so it took me a bit longer. Well, let's be on our way then, huh?" Anko said as she turned left and right to show off her new outfit.

Naruto gulped, his heart skipped a beat and he could swear it just became several degrees warmer in Konoha. He somewhat understood why Ero-Sennin and apparently many other men were lusting after someone like Anko.

"That...That was still pretty short then...if you got to look this pretty in that small amount of time, that is." Naruto let out as he puffed up his chest and tried to not let Anko's sudden change affect him too much.

"Thank you. I had to look good for the place we're going to...Since I agreed on going out to dinner with you, I guess I also get to say where we go too, huh? Or did you perhaps arrange a romantic dinner all by yourself...?" Anko leered at Naruto, who started sweating for entirely different reasons than before.

"___Crap...Did she expect me to take her to some special place? If I lie to her, I'll be in trouble because I don't have anything at all! On the other hand...if I tell the truth, I could be in trouble ____anyway! Well...It's best not to lie to her...Though, if she has some fancy place in mind...Then by the end of the night..." _Naruto thought as the image of his frog-shaped wallet came came into his mind, "___Gama-chan will be comepletely flattened!"_

"Ah...Sorry, I was kinda in a hurry, so I forgot to think of anything special to take you to...Ahaha." Naruto rubbed the back of his head as he grinned sheepishly.

"That's alright. I've got an idea of where to take you anyway." Anko said as she grinned widely.

"___...Crap...I don't trust that grin of hers...It must be something bad...Either for Gama-chan or for me..."_

"Well, let's go there then. Ahaha...haha...ha." Naruto said as he let out an anxious laugh.

A little while later, they were at just your average sushi restaurant and as Naruto took a seat, Anko sat down right next to him, "_Close! Too close! What is she doing?!____...There's like a place to sit at across the table as well you know..."_

"Ah, Anko-san, long time no see. What shall it be tonight?" A bald guy with a white tank-top and a towel thrown over his shoulder asked as he had a pen and notebook ready to take their orders.

"Taking it easy as usual huh? Anyway, the usual and don't forget the regular amount of sake." Anko said smiling politely at the man.

"And for your little friend there?"

"Er...I'd like to have some..."

"For him the same as me." Anko interrupted Naruto and ordered for him instead.

The man looked at Naruto before speaking up again, "And what would the young man like to drink?"

"He'll have some sake as well." Anko said as she winked at the bald man.

"Hm?" The man looked questioningly at Naruto, "He's underage...Is this a test ordered by the Hokage or something, Anko-san?"

"Of course not! As long as you stick to our deal, no one would hear about something like this... So, just get some sake for my little friend here...And nothing bad will happen." Anko winked at the man as she wrapped an arm around Naruto's shoulder and pulled him closer towards her.

"_For him perhaps!_" Naruto thought as his eyes were fixated on something completely else.

"...Gotcha." The man said as he walked away.

Naruto was sweating like he was spending a day in the dessert with ten sweaters and three pairs of pants on, as Anko had pulled him so close that his face was nearly pressing against her chest. He could literally smell nothing but her sweet scented perfume.

Anko noticed the look on Naruto's face and let go off him, "Sorry, sorry...I didn't realize I was pulling you that hard." She smiled at him that felt just a little bit too fake too Naruto and he knew that she clearly still knew what she was doing to him.

His gaze lowered to her chest before he stared at Anko's face, "___Trying to get me drunk huh? Damn it, if I get drunk with her I'm so screwed...in more ways than one."_

"So, while we wait for the old man to bring us our meal...What did you need help with, Naruto-kun?" Anko leered towards Naruto again as he tried to hide his suspicions from her by acting like his usual self.

"Ehm...Like...stuff with women and all." Naruto said grinning nervously, wondering what she'd answer.

"Oh...I see...What do you want to learn? I can learn you how to do just about _anything _with a women..." Anko leered again at Naruto as she leaned slightly closer to him.

"___Yeah...I bet you'd just __love ____teaching me about women and how to do 'anything' with them..." _Naruto thought as he stared blankly at her again before switching back to his normal look, "Er...Well...like...how to do...stuff?"

"Ooooh...___Stuff, _you say huh?" Anko threw an amused look at Naruto, and he could swear that he saw a flicker of something 'dangerous' in her eyes.

"___Oh shit, now she's thinking __that ____kinda stuff! What's next? She'll just sexually harass me in the middle of the restaurant?"_

"What kind of ___stuff_, Naruto-kun?" Anko asked when Naruto didn't reply to her.

"Er..." Naruto was speechless for a moment, trying to come up with a plan, "___Crap...If I'm not careful...Would she perhaps just do it right here?! Like, in the restaurant, with everyone watching?! She seemed to have all of these guys in her pocket, so...Oh man, I'm __so____ screwed!_"

"Well...How to do... things with women." Naruto answered Anko's question, "___Oh shit! I did it again! I gotta be more specific about these kind of answers!"_

"Ah, I see...I could teach you all you don't know yet, you know...But since we can't really waste time on teaching you things you _already _know...How about we start with you telling me what you don't know yet for sure and want to know...?" Anko's previous mischievous leer seemed to have faded as he had a gentle smile on her face, one that actually even seemed to relax Naruto slightly.

"Um...What I want to know is..." Naruto replied, "___Come on Naruto...Think of the most innocent thing you haven't done yet...Shaking hands? No, she won't buy that...Giving a girl a hug? er..._"

Naruto thought back at the time he tried to give Sakura a hug for his 'Kuchiyose no jutsu' training, even though it was more for unleashing his potential to use the Kyuubi's chakra as he had learned from Jiraiya later, and then at the times he almost hugged a girl when he was out training with Jiraiya the past two and a half years he was away from Konoha.

"___Well...That's something I haven't really done yet, I suppose...and it could be believable...right?" _Naruto thought, "How do you hug a girl?"

Anko backed away slightly, blnked at Naruto in utter surprise, "You've...never even hugged a girl?"

Naruto shook his head, "Nope. I tried but most of the time I ended up with either a fist in my face or dropping to the ground as she just walked away."

Anko gasped and before Naruto could so much as blink, she had wrapped her arms around him and tightly embraced him, pressing his head in between her breasts. Naruto froze, his heart racing so hard that he could feel it all the way up in his throat.

That tension disappeared completely from his body as Anko started caressing the back of his head and whisper softly, "Aw...You poor boy. This is a good start then. Though not really when it comes to how to hug a girl, haha."

Naruto heard a 'splash' and some sizzling, as he noticed Anko turning her head around. Well, it was not like he could see her doing it, but he could feel her movements at the very least.

"What is it?" Naruto heard Anko say.

"Anko-san, if you're going to act like that before you even touched your sake, I'm going to have to drag you out after your first cup or something." Naruto now heard the voice of the old man from before.

"Ah, this is nothing. Just giving my friend here a tight hug. Like friends do...Right, Naruto-kun?"

Naruto nodded and as he did he felt Anko's hand caress his back, "___Oh god...Perhaps wasn't a really smart move..._"

"...Well, anyway here's your meal and..." Naruto heard as the man paused for some reason.

"___Maybe he noticed what's going on here and is going to kick us out? Please let that be it!"__ Naruto thought._

"Ah, god damn it. I dropped my smoke in the sake. Shit, I'll be right back with some fresh sake and your meals."

As Naruto heard the man walk away again, he figured this might be the best chance to get out of Anko's embrace, "Ehm...Can you let go of me now?"

He felt Anko clutching onto his sweater before she spoke up, "Why?"

Naruto could just feel the hints of amusement and pleasure in Anko's voice, but he really wanted normal air instead of her scent, thus he siad the first thing that popped into his mind, "I have to go to the bathroom."

She let go of Naruto and he decided to hold the sigh of relief when he actually was inside the bathroom. As he stood up from his seat and walked around the table, Naruto noticed Anko was leering at him again, "Need a helping hand when you go to the bathroom?"

"No, thanks! I think I can take a crap on my own just fine." Naruto quickly replied and saw Anko's smirk fall down in disappointment.

Naruto quickly went to the men's bathroom, picked one of the toilets there to do his business and closed the door behind him, making sure it was locked, just in case Anko felt like 'accidentally' entering the men's bathroom.

He was glad that the toilet had no opening at the top or something like that, the only way in and out would be through the door, meaning Anko couldn't get in.

"This is going to end up bad, I just know it..." Naruto said to himself and let out a sigh.

Just then a cold breeze ran over Naruto's back and as he looked up, he found a window planted at the top of the wall behind him, used to ventilate the toilet. It wasn't really big, but it didn't seem that small either, and a plan quickly formed in Naruto's mind.

"Looks like I have found a way to escape from Miss Nymphwhatchamacallit for a while here." Naruto flashed a grin as he finished his business on the toilet.

"I can use that to escape for a while and then come back the same way since no one else can enter the toilet, since I locked the door. If anyone asks, I just really had to go! Hehehe, I'm the best!" Naruto said to himself as he put down the toilet seat and made his way up to the window.

As he had wormed half his way through the window, he heard a familiar voice, "...so don't tell him about anything I just asked you, ok?"

Naruto looked in the direction of where the voice came from, where he found Tenten and Hinata, who were now also looking at him, still half sticking out of the window.

"Naruto-ku..." Hinata said and fainted, falling into Tenten's arms.

"Naruto?! Were you eavesdropping on us?!" Tenten demanded to know but then her eyes then widened, "Oh my god! Is N-Neji there with you!"

Naruto took notice of the fact that Tenten was gaping at him with wide eyes, but he really needed discretion right now no matter what, "Sshht! Be quiet! No! Neji is not here with me. Why? Are you looking for Neji?"

"N-no! I'm not looking for N-Neji at all!" Tenten flushed bright red in her face, "How long have you been listening to me and Hinata?!"

"___Looks like I could have an interesting position here...if she buys it..." _Naruto thought as he pushed himself out of the window, neatly landed on his two feet and flashed a grin at Tenten, "Hehehe, Long enough."

Tenten's eyes sharpened and stared straight into Naruto's eyes, "If you tell a single soul about what you learned here, I'm going to show you what I can do with a kunai and trust me, you will _not _like it."

"Don't worry, I won't tell anyone." Naruto said with a wide grin on his face.

"So, what are you doing here? And why did you just crawl out of that small window?" Tenten asked as she blinked at Naruto.

Naruto let his shoulders slump in defeat,"Too many reason...Do you mind if we could talk a bit longer before I heading back inside through that thing?"

Tenten carried herself and Hinata to the wall, leaning against it before sliding down to sit on the ground, as just standing with Hinata in her arms was stating to become quite heavy.

"Well, I suppose I don't mind...What do you want to talk about then?" Tenten asked as she looked up at Naruto.

"Hm...Well like..." Naruto sat down beside the two girls, one of which was still unconscious it seemed, "Why are you looking for Neji?"

"I'm not!" Tenten's face flushed red again as she snapped at Naruto.

"Hehe...! You can deny it all you want, but if you really aren't...Why does your face flush red when I'm asking you about Neji?" Naruto put on his wide grin once again as he looked at Tenten.

"You swear you won't tell anyone what I'm about to tell you?" Tenten said, still red in her face as she pulled Hinata up, making it seem like they were hugging each other.

"Yeah, yeah. Shinobi's honor."

"...I received a letter today..." Tenten started as her face turned brighter.

"Heh?" Naruto's eyes widened, "___Is she talking about my letter...?_"

"It was a love letter...A very sweet one as well...It was written under a different name but I'm almost sure it's Neji..." Tenten averted her eyes from Naruto, who for once was glad a girl wasn't looking straight at him.

"But, if it was written with a different name than Neji's under it, why do you think it's him?" Naruto asked as he kept his face stuck in a grin as wide as he could manage, "___Crap...This could mean my chances to get at least a single date before Valentine's Day with her is getting very ____slim if she wants to go out with Neji already..."_

"Well..." Tenten's face turned even brighter, "It said in the letter that...that person already knew me for some years now...And I know Neji a long time and well..."

"But, you know! You know me now also for a couple of years, so I'm sure Neji isn't the only possible person!" Naruto quickly retorted "_Crap! What am I doing?! Do I want to her to find out it's mine?!_"

Tenten looked with wide eyes at Naruto before she let out a giggle, "Yeah, you're right. But I doubt you'd do something like writing a love letter."

"Hey! I have what they call a 'sensetive side' or something as well, you know!" Naruto retorted, sounding genuinely offended by Tenten's remark.

Tenten's eyes softened as she stopped giggling about Naruto, "But you know...I uhm...well...I gave Neji a hug today...and he didn't seem to mind...actually we hugged for quite a long time...so it's got to be him, right?"

"Neji...really hugged you?" Naruto blinked in disbelief at Tenten.

Tenten bit her lowerlip for a while before speaking up, "Well...I'm not sure he liked it really...I think he was somewhat annoyed, but at the same time, he didn't seem to mind it either...I mean...he didn't push me away or something like that..."

"So, you're planning on asking him out for Valentine?" Naruto asked with a straight face.

Tenten's head shot up and face turned even brighter red, before her eyes looked kind of sad again and she lowered her head once more, "Neji...isn't the kind of person to really show his affection towards people out in public like that...Maybe when we'd be alone, he would...but I doubt he wants to spend Valentine's Day with me in his room or such...So I guess I'm sitting Valentine's Day out...as usual..."

Naruto noticed a couple of tears forming in Tenten's eyes and felt kind of bad about it, so he thought of trying to cheer her up at least, "Tenten...uhm..."

Tenten looked up at him as he looked away from her, "What is it?"

"Uh...I don't know what was written in the letter or if it really was from Neji, but if it said how much he liked you, I'm sure that he'd want to go out with you on Valentine's Day and such..." Naruto scratched his wiskers and looked towards Tenten from the corner of his eyes, wondering how she'd react.

A warm but small smile rose on Tenten's face, "Thank you Naruto. I never knew you'd be such a nice person to talk to."

"Hehehe. As future Hokage, I must be able to talk to everyone in the Village, right?" Naruto grinned widely, "And you know what, just in case Neji doesn't go out with you for Valentine's Day, I'll go and buy you a amazingly great box of chocolate and I think I could even get you a beautifull bouquet of flowers from Ino's place and then hand them to you so you at least have a nice Valentine's Day!"

Tenten's eyes went wide for a long moment and a red blush again appeared on her face. Naruto noticed this and immediately realised what kind of thoughts she was having by what he just said, as Tenten averted her eyes from him as he looked at her, "Ah! It's not like that! It's just so you won't go and be all sad on Valentine's Day! Really! Besides it's not like I wrote that letter, alright! It has to be Neji! I'm sure of it! He'll go out with you on Valentine's Day! It's just that...err...he's perhaps a little shy?"

Tenten looked up in cofusement at Naruto,"Eh...Yeah...I guess? I'll just have to find a way to know for sure that it's him."

"Then, write a reply to that letter or something like that." Naruto grinned, "_Oh man, I'm not sure if I'm digging my own grave here or making my way out of it!_"

"Yeah, I think I will, once I get back home." Tenten replied with a nod.

"Ah...I think I'd better head back inside now... I think I might be taking a bit too long now...Hehehe..." Naruto rubbed the back of his head, "Which is kind of dangerous in and of it's own..."

"Hm, I don't know what's going on with you, but I'll help you get back inside." Tenten said as she carefully laid Hinata down against the wall.

The weapons mistress gave him a boost to reach the window again and Naruto tried his way back inside. However, halfway through, he got stuck somehow.

"Oh, damn! I'm stuck!" Naruto out.

"Hold up, I'll push you in!" Tenten repled and lifted Naruto's legs up before trying to thrust his body through the window opening.

After lots of groans from Naruto and a lot of pushing on Tenten's side, Naruto finally was back inside the bathroom.

"Thanks, Tenten! I owe you one!" Naruto yelled back through the window, as he could only see Tenten's shirt at the moment as she was hanging on to the wall.

"It's ok, really. Oh, wait one sec!" Tenten said as she lowered herself to be able to look through the window.

"What is it? I'm already in trouble most likely..." Naruto asked as he climbed back to the window.

Tenten flicked a cell phone out of her pocket and held it in front of Naruto.

"Give me your phone number. I think I'm going to call you every now and then, since... you're pretty interesting to talk to and all."

Surprise was written all over Naruto's face, "___No girl has ever asked me for my number...wow..." _

_"There you go." Naruto said after entering his number._

_"Thanks, I'll call you later then. Oh, and good luck with whatever you're doing in there." Tenten said before jumping down._

_"Thanks." Naruto replied before softly adding, "I think I'll need it..."_

Naruto quickly headed out of the toilet, washed his hands and rushed back towards Anko, who he found poking in her meal.

"Sorry, apparently I ate something really bad earlier and it just kept coming out over and over again..." Naruto lied as he sat down across her and grabbed his plate.

Anko immediately seemed to brighten up as she saw Naruto and smiled at him,"Ah, I see. For a minute there I thought something else..."

"Hm, like what?" Naruto asked as he took a bite.

Anko smirked at him as she slipped her foot out of her shoe, "That you ran away from me."

Naruto felt her foot moving back and forth over his inner thigh and Naruto felt like he was being tested, "Of course not! Who'd do such a thing?!"

He picked his plate up and moved back next to Anko, afraid that she might accidentally let her foot slide a bit too far and a bit too fast. Anko leered at him as he moved about and placed her foot back in her shoe.

"You know...You haven't had a drink yet." Anko mentioned and Naruto looked towards the two cups in front of them.

One of them had already been used, obviously by Anko, and the other was spotless.

"Ah, well...I'm not really that thirsty you know..." Naruto grinned sheepishly.

Anko wrapped an arm around Naruto, pulled him closer towards her, pressing his arm against her chest as she moved her mouth to his ear.

"Silly boy, you don't drink sake when you're thirsty...Won't you do it for me? Just this once?" To Naruto, it sounded more like a command than a question.

"Ehm...sure why not then, huh? Ehehehe." Naruto grinned and took a cup and filled it half way up, "___Damn her, she's really trying to get me drunk...I'm not going to drink too much though..._"

"Well then..." Naruto said as he looked at the cup and he noticed that Anko was looking at it as well, "Cheers!"

Naruto poured the liquid into his mouth, finding it to have a strange taste to it but not really unpleasant, so he gulped it as soon as possible. Anko grinned widely as Naruto placed the empty cup back on the table and gave him a kiss on his cheek, "Good boy..."

Naruto couldn't help but flush red, though he decided to remain silent instead of causing a scene.

"Then, I'll have another one as well. Naru-chan, will you be so kind as to fill it up for me?" Anko asked with a nonchalant smile on her face as she held her cup in front of her.

Naruto eyed her awkwardly upon hearing her newly made nickname for him and then carefully filled her cup.

"___Hey, I know what to do! ...Ero-sennin always falls asleep when he drinks too much sake! But...Like what will she do before she actually falls asleep...?" _Naruto thought, slightly doubting his newfound plan.

Anko swallowed her cup in one go and held it in front of Naruto again as she pressed her cheek against his with a smile on her face, "Seconds."

Naruto carefully filled her cup once again and it was empty again within a second.

"Now it's your turn again..." Anko smiled at Naruto, pushing her cup against his mouth.

Ignoring the cup that was pressed against his lips, he eyed his own cup. Naruto was about to fill it, because he really didn't want to find out if he disobeyed a drunk Anko. She was scary enough sober, let alone what she'd do with a decent amount of sake in her.

However just as he wanted to tilt the bottle and fill his cup Anko held out hers in front of the bottle. Naruto looked at her with uncertainty, not knowing what she wanted exactly, but she clarified it for him with two commanding words, "Fill it."

He let out a sigh and filled her cup and she brought it to his mouth. Naruto put the bottle down next to his own cup and blinked at the cup that was in front of his mouth once more.

"Come on, drink up." Anko commanded.

"Why? That's your cup Anko-...sensei." Naruto replied.

"Because if you won't drink it, I'm going to scream out loud that you touched me inappropriately and have all these guys here beat you up." She said with a drunken grin on her face.

Naruto looked into around what he could see from the restaurant. He was sure they couldn't beat him up, he'd have them eating dust in no time, though it'd be the irresponsible thing to do as a shinobi.

And then again, he didn't really want to become known as a pervert among the other shinobi like his sensei was known to be. He figured that he could at the very least satisfy Anko's whims a bit more at the moment, in hopes that she'll stop sooner or later.

Naruto turned towards her and smirked, "Make me drink it."

Anko gasped at him, her mouth literally hung open for a good ten seconds at the very least, but she regained her composure as much as possible and smirked at Naruto, "Close your eyes then and say ah..."

"_It's not li____ke I have a choice in the matter..._" Naruto thought as he regretted his action to make Anko more satisfied instead of just drinking the god damned sake, "Ahhhhh."

Naruto obediently opened his mouth and closed his eyes and expected to find the strange tasting liquid in his mouth called sake once again. However, it wasn't exactly that which he found a moment later in his mouth. It tasted like sake in a lot of ways, but it sure as hell wasn't sake, Naruto noted.

Naruto opened his eyes and looked at Anko, who was still kissing him.

"___Alright...Never thought my first real kiss would be...happening like this..." _Naruto thought as he continued looking at Anko, who continued doing her own thing in his mouth. Which, he had to admit, felt more than just a little pleasant.

After a while, Anko pulled away from Naruto and leered at him, "___Oh shit, I got her really started now..."_

"Naru-chan..." Anko said, Naruto gulped before she continued, "Could you help this lil girl back to her house? I think had a bit too much sake..."

"Eh...Sure...I...I'll pay up for the food and stuff..." Naruto said.

He 'helped' Anko up, although he found it a bit suspicious that she suddenly asked all of this and wasn't sure if the sake was strong enough to get her acting like this or if she was actually quite weak when it came to alcohol. Then again, he only had one cup of it while she obviously had more than one in the time that he was avoiding her on the toilet.

"Old man, thanks for the meal, but Anko-sensei doesn't feel so good right now it seems, so..." Naruto said as he paid up.

The man didn't say a single word as he counted the money and silently put it away.

As Naruto and Anko headed out of the restaurant, the man let out a sigh, "She shoots and scores...like usual...Honestly..." He muttered before getting back to his other customers.

Naruto walked down the street and then looked clueless, "Eh...Where do we need to go anyway?"

"That way..." Anko pointed towards the alley that lead to another street.

"...Are you sure?" Naruto couldn't help but feel her behaviour was suspicious.

"Sure, I'm sure. It's shorter if we go that way."

"Ok, if you say so..." Naruto said and carefully walked into the alley with her.

He knew it was a bad idea, his instinct told him as much the moment he set foot in the alley. It simply wasn't until they reached a t-junction in the alley that his instinct was proven to be correct, as Anko pinned him against the wall around the corner.

"Hehe, you didn't really think I was drunk after a wee bit of sake, right?" Anko's grin seemed to both tease and mock Naruto at the same time. Though nervous, Naruto tried to remain as calm as possible.

"...Yeah, I had my doubts about it. It was rather odd...Unless you drank a lot while I was taking a crap..."

"Then..." Anko said as she pressed her body onto Naruto's, "I think it's time to move on to your next lesson, my little fox..."

Anko trailed a finger over his jaw, before slowly trailing it down over the rest of his body. Naruto knew he couldn't simply beat the crap out of her, for a variety of reasons, including that he wasn't entirely sure exactly just how strong she was. Instead, he tried to look a little frightened towards Anko, which was partially an act and partially him actually being frightened by her straight-forward behaviour.

"Er...I don't think I need any...more...lessons." Naruto replied as Anko gave him a couple of kisses on his cheek and neck.

"Hm...I see..." Anko said as she pulled slightly away from Naruto and he let out a sigh of relief, that relief was however lived shortly as she spoke up again, "You want some skin, huh?"

"Wha-?" The quarter didn't drop in Naruto's brain right away, but that changed as she grabbed one of his hands and placed it in her kimono, just an inch or two below her chest. Naruto felt his heart race as every muscle in his body froze and forced him to not to move a single inch.

"Don't you want to know how the rest of my skin feels like?" Anko playfully whispered into his ear.

Naruto slightly trailed down with his hand, the opposite direction Anko obviously wanted him to go in at the moment, but she considered it, and his racing heartbeat, progress at least.

"___God damn! She's so soft and there's not a single flaw on her skin...What the hell am I doing?!...Because I'll be screwed to get a date with Sakura-chan if I won't do this...? She'll probably go and shout that I'm violating her...though she's the one that's forcing me to do any and all of this!_"

"Hold your hand still for a moment..." Anko said, placing her own hand on top of his, "If you move it while I'm going to do this then you'll be in a lot of trouble since you'd kill the suspense."

"___Suspense?! Suspense, she says! H-Holy crap! I think I understand why Ero-Sennin wants to go out for 'dinner' with her. She's the dream of every pervert in Konoha, no, in the world!"_

As she kept one hand on top of Naruto's, she used her other to partially undo her own kimono, revealing a lot more skin, barely keeping her breasts covered with the fine cloth.

"Now..." Anko smirked at him, "Move a bit further up with your hand, Naru-chan..."

She tried to move Naruto's hand towards her chest, but he refused to move a single muscle. Anko looked slightly confused at him, mainly for the fact that he was gritting his teeth.

"I won't do it...!" Naruto protested, a fierce look in his eyes that showed his determination, "You want me to do all these things, but I barely even know you! I'm not going to do it!"

She removed Naruto's hand from her body and narrowed her eyes at him, "You..."

Naruto was prepared to face her if she planned on using force, but again Naruto was taken by surprise. Anko pressed herself against him, wrapping her arms around him and passionately kissed him.

It felt different from when she kissed him back in the restaurant, as if she'd been holding back and finally showed her true skills. The sensation sent a shiver throughout Naruto's entire body and he found himself resting his hands on her back as well.

As she broke the kiss, Naruto was speechless. Anko pulled away for a moment to close the top half of her kimono again to cover herself up a little bit more.

Seeing the look of surprise on Naruto's face, she simply giggled and said, "You know...You're the first to reject my first attempt at getting...a little more from them...And you know what?"

She pressed herself against Naruto again and for a moment, he thought she was going to kiss him again. Instead, she simply smiled at him, "I like it. I could still have my way with you right here and now, if I really wanted to, but...it will be that much more fun when you want it yourself just as badly as I do. So..."

"Y-yeah?" Naruto stuttered, finally managing to let out another word.

"Until then, I'll take an indirect approach to teaching you...Well, a little bit more indirect..." Anko said as she moved her mouth towards his again.

"Uh...can that wait until later as well?" Naruto asked, fearing his heart and mind couldn't take much more of Anko's ways. Anko paused in and seemed to take an unusually deep breath.

"Listen, Naru-chan..." Anko trailed with her fingers over his body, "Either I kiss you right here and now or..."

"Or?" Naruto gulped.

"Or I'll show you what my snakes are good for and have my way with you until 5 AM in the morning...You see, I'm...Well, let's just say that I have issues holding back as it is." Anko said, the look in her eyes losing a little bit of their previous fire.

"_Well____, that sure is such a hard choice to make..." _Naruto thought before he quickly pressed his lips against Anko's, catching her by surprise but she lead him right trough it.

As she broke the kiss again, she backed off him. Naruto let out a deep breath, both of relief and just because he needed to breathe normally again.

Anko snapped her fingers and a small card appeared between her index and middle finger, "Here you go, Naru-chan. It's my phone number and address. In case you...need me."

She smirked as Naruto took the card and put it in his pocket.

"Ehm...can I ask you one more thing for tonight?" Naruto asked and Anko gave him a questioning look.

"Would you please call me something other than 'Naru-chan'? ...I don't like it."

"Hmmmm, all right...My cute little fox." Anko said with a smile on her face as she turned around and started heading out of the alley, "Now, since I pretty much gave you my goodnight kiss already, I have one last thing to give you..."

"...And that would be what, exactly?" Naruto asked, though in fact didn't really want to know.

Naruto tried to follow her movements, but she was a ninja like him after all. One moment she moved her hand to the back of her head, the next, her usually tied up hair flowed freely in the wind and the top half of her kimono was lowered to her waist.

The sigh was breath-taking, Naruto forgetting the situation he was in with her just a moment ago and simply being taken away by her beautiful appearance.

"Don't you dare forget me, my cute little fox."

The wind flew quietly through the alley and Naruto stood still there for a moment. Anko had disappeared already, but the image of her bare back and flowing hair was still in his mind. It was then that Naruto reached his mental limit and passed out with a bleeding nose.

He didn't know how much time had passed when he woke up again, but he knew he'd better get home soon and just sleep the night away. With some effort, Naruto reached his apartment and stumbled up the stairs and towards the door. Once inside he closed the door behind him and put his keys away.

Just then, he could have sworn to hear something coming up ahead from his living room. It was pitch dark in the room, so he couldn't see very well at all. He flipped on a switch for the lights and was surprised, or to be more precise shocked with what he found in his living room.

"Congratulations, Naruto!" Jiraiya and his frogs chanted in unison, while some frogs simply croaked, being unable to speak.

His living room was filled with frogs, most of whom were actually wearing party hats, and there was even a large cake in the center.

"What the hell? It's not my birthday..."

Jiraiya walked towards Naruto and put a hand on his shoulder, "So, how does it feel to be a man now, Naruto?"

"Ero-sennin...Is it just me, or is my place loaded with frogs wearing party hats and stuff?"

"Oh, come on! You've finally become a man! That's cause for celebration!" Jiraiya said with a big grin on his face

"Eh...Wasn't I a man from the very start?" Naruto asked.

"Eh, yes, but...You went out with Anko, right?"

"Yeah, I did...So, what about it?" Naruto narrowed his eyes at his teacher, trying to figure out what he was trying to say.

"To put it bluntly...I thought you and her had ehm...did the deed, pierced the proverbial heaven, so to say, and all that before you came home just now. Actually, I wouldn't have been surprised if you had pierced her heavens multiple times by now."

"What?! No! Something like that didn't happen at all!" Naruto replied and thought "_She sure as hell wanted me to 'pierce' something though..._"

An immediate silence fell in the room.

A very, very long silence.

"What the...?" Jiraiya raised an eyebrow at Naruto.

"Damnit, Jiraiya! You made me wear this party hat for nothing then! The kid is still a virgin!" Gamakichi replied as he smacked his hat on the ground.

"Hey! It's not like you aren't one either!" Naruto accusingly pointed at the frog, though he wasn't sure why he felt offended by the frog summon.

"What are you blabbering about, kiddo?! My wife's pregnant! We're having little baby frogs soon!"

Naruto gasped at Gamakichi, who was seriously just looking at Naruto like 'What? Is there something wrong with me becoming a dad?'

"Anyway, Jiraiya! If there's nothing to celebrate, me and the others are out of here. And we're taking the cake with us!" Gamakichi said as he and all the other frogs popped off.

"Why...? How...?" Jiraiya muttered as he stared at Naruto in disbelief.

"Like...ehm...Not feeling like it? She was kind of...scary. Interesting, but scary." Naruto replied after thinking at least two seconds about his answer.

"Not feeling like it...? Not feeling like it?! .Have. _Any_ idea what that woman is capable of?!" Jiraiya shouted in disbelief.

"Er...As a matter of fact...I think I had a...taste...of what she was capable off..." Naruto nodded slowly, trying his best to not recall the prior events too vividly in his mind.

Jiraiya just gasped at him and then grinned, "Well, if that's the case I'd say my chances for asking her out are up...Er, I mean...uhm...yeah...well, that's what I meant, hahaha. After all, you were able to pick up a woman like that after reading my book, and Yondaime got his...Oh, right...Ahem."

Just then something popped into Naruto's mind. He didn't know why, but the idea just seemed to come to him.

"Eh...Sensei?" He asked with an overly sweet grin on his face.

"What do you want this time?" Jiraiya asked, knowing the look on Naruto's face all too well.

"What are you talking about? I don't want anything!" Naruto tried to up the innocence of his grin a bit more, but to no avail.

"Don't lie to me! Every time you call me sensei, you want something! So...Stop pretending and just ask whatever it is you want to ask already."

"Ehm...Do you like have...pictures of Yondaime when he was like let's say...16 years old or so? Pretty young at least." Naruto asked, knowing that despite his behaviour the old pervert really cared for his students.

"Hm...I think I do, as a matter of fact. Let me see here..." Jiraiya said as he took out a small photo album and started flipping trough it.

"You carry a photo album around with ya?" Naruto blinked at Jiraiya.

"Yeah, with all the pictures of everyone I taught at least one thing." Jiraiya looked questioningly at Naruto, as if it was weird for him to carry such a thing around. Naruto expected him to have it, but not to simply have it with him.

"...I see...Well, can you just get me the photo from 16 year old Yondaime then, please?"

Jiraiya flipped through a couple of more pages before showing Naruto a picture, "This is him when he was 16 years old...From what I remember, at least."

Naruto looked closely at the picture to give himself a thought of all the small details. Yondaime was blonde, Naruto knew this already so that was why he wanted to see that picture in the first place, next his blue eyes were different from Naruto's own pair of blue eyes.

If you'd look into Naruto's eyes, you could see determination, joy and a slight hint sadness if he wasn't joking around. Yondaime's eyes were different. They showed care for the world around him, leadership, determination and a unique kind of kindness towards others.

Naruto didn't know why he saw those things in them, but that was just what he felt he saw in Yondaime's eyes. As for the way his body was build, Naruto noted that he was at least half a head taller than Naruto was right now, using Jiraiya standing next to him and next to Yondaime on the picture as a measurement. Naruto also found Yondaime to be slightly more buff than him.

"Could I...borrow that picture for a while?" Naruto asked.

"Hm...I don't know..."

"Please!" Naruto folded his hands and bowed his head.

"It's very precious to me, since we both look so very bad ass on it and all!"

"I'll tell you one thing that _did _happen to me with Anko if you do!" Naruto smirked as Jiraiya's ears perked.

"Well...I guess it's all right then, as long as you don't lose it. And as long as you tell me something juicy!"

Naruto grinned and told Jiraiya how when Anko hugged him, she pressed his head onto her chest. It was probably the tamest thing she had done all evening to him, but Naruto knew well enough to keep more material on hand if he needed it to convince the old perv later. After hearing this though, Jiraiya seemed to have drifted off to la-la land, as he handed Naruto the picture with one swift motion.

"I'll talk to you later, Naruto!" And with that Jiraiya left Naruto's house.

Naruto let out a sigh as he sat down on his couch and looked at the photograph.

"I really hope I can successfully Henge into him and all...Since I haven't seen him in person, it's going to be hard. But you know! I should manage. I managed to make Sexy no Jutsu with just photo material reference and looking at real women too! Though..."

Naruto laid the picture down on the small table in front of him, "This will be a tough one...If it actually comes to that, I'll have to see how well I can manage to do it!"

Naruto yawned and stretched out before picking up the picture again, "All right. Time to head to bed."

He put the picture down next to his bed and held out his fist towards it, "If I need to start looking like you to do this, then that will be another I owe you, Yondaime."

Meanwhile, in the Hidden Village of Sand, Temari ran up the stairs of the mansion where she and her siblings lived. Mail always arrived late in the village, since most of the time it's too warm during the day for postmen to deliver letters.

Temari had received a letter from Konoha, which surprised her more than the fact that she actually received mail for once. However, she was absolutely knocked off her feet when she read the letter, which she found out to be a love letter, written by a guy she didn't even know by name. Yet this guy was asking her out on a date and that he was willing to travel all the way to her for it too.

Temari stormed through the hall rather loudly, but her steps quickly softened as she reached Gaara's room. She opened the door and stuck her head inside, "Gaara?"

No response, unlike usual. Ever since Gaara's encounter with the Akatsuki, he had lost the demon inside him, but still retained his control over sand. It was some of the knowledge that he hadn't lost when they took his demon from him.

However, with the demon gone, he could also finally sleep for the first time in his life and he quickly realized that he was quite fond of sleeping, as Temari and Kankuro had noticed.

After his first night of sleep, Gaara came down into the living room whistling, gave her a hug, patted her brother on the shoulder before making breakfast for all three of them.

It bothered her at first, since she wasn't used to a stress-free Gaara at all, but now she enjoyed Gaara being cheerful in the morning and being a more lively person around them in general. So, most of the time she'd rather have him sleep through the entire night, even if there were still nights where he kept his usual night-owl behaviour up and just didn't have to sleep.

She somewhat missed the times where she could always just casually walk into his room, as he was the only person to listen to any of her problems at night. She hoped to find him doing more Kazekage business tonight as well, but unfortunately, he was already lying in his bed and seemed to be quietly sleeping.

Temari walked up to his bed, where she lightly shook him to wake him from his slumer,"Gaara, sorry to wake you up, but...You and me, we're going to head for Konohagakure right now."

Gaara groaned for a moment and then looked at he and, since he was still a light sleeper, it didn't take long for him to wake up at all.

"Why?" He asked, sounding slightly annoyed.

"Because someone there really likes me and I want to know who it is!" Temari truthfully stated.

"Fine...We'll go meet the person who likes you...As long as I can sleep on the way there..." Gaara said as he got out of bed, threw his teddy into his gourd.

"Thank you, Gaara! You're the best! I'll lead the way tonight, so you can just peacefully sleep!"

"Ahuh, sure..." Gaara said as he stretched.

Temari headed out of her little brother's room so he could change his clothes and pack, just like she would have to do in a moment.

"I wonder what he's like...This is the first time a guy sent me a love letter...!" Temari smiled, sounding a lot more girlish than usual before she loudly squealed out of excitement to meet her secret admirer.


	4. Chapter 4: The Kunoichi Who Loves Me

******Chapter 4: The Kunoichi Who Loves Me**

Anko trailed her finger over Naruto's jaw, "Don't forget me Naru-chan..."

She kissed Naruto passionately, letting her hand run over his back as she pressed herself against him. Anko backed away from him after breaking the kiss, "I _won't _let you..."

Snakes shot out from the sleeves of the orange kimono she was wearing and crawled up over Naruto's body, who started to panic. The snakes pinned him to the floor beneath him and held him there, unable to move a single muscle no matter how hard he tried to break free.

Anko kneeled down at the end of his feet and crawled over Naruto's body, hey body brushing over his with every inch she moved forward until they were face to face again.

Naruto gulped as Anko loosened her entire kimono with one swift motion of her hand. Just as it dropped open, Anko lowered her body onto Naruto's and kissed him again with an even fiercer passion than before, sending a shiver down his spine.

When she stopped kissing him and allowed him to breathe again, she sat straight up on his lap. After Naruto gasped for air, her snakes retreated and she pulled him up by his shirt. With a flick of her fingers, she untied her hair.

Licking her lips, she put her hands on Naruto's back and let her nails slowly dig in, "Let's get it on. My. Little. Fox."

And just as she lowered both of them again...

Naruto's eyes shot wide open, staring at the ceiling of his own room as sweat drops rapidly dropped down from his head. He looked down his bed, noticing no one there and he dropped his head back down on his pillow.

"Again, huh?...Almost the same as last night...well, at least this time I managed to sleep..." Naruto told himself as his head fell over to the right, looking towards the clock that hung in his kitchen.

"Six AM...I guess I could start my morning training extra early..." Naruto said as he let out a yawn, "But now I just want to rest my eyes for a few more minutes..."

Naruto rolled back over and closed his eyes and just as he relaxed and started falling asleep, his phone loudly rang, which made him jump out of his bed and lose any hint of sleep that remained.

"God damn it...It's freaking early...Hang up already..." Naruto told who ever was calling him as he dropped back down on his bed and covered his ears with his pillow.

However, the ringing wouldn't stop, so Naruto jumped out of his bed again, picked up the phone.

"Hello...?" Naruto let out, as he dug his way back under his bed sheets. He heard loud and heavy panting coming through the receiver of the phone.

"...Hello...? Who am I... talking to?" Naruto asked, with a certain hint of uncertainty.

"Naruto..." A woman's voice panted through the phone.

"...No, that would be me. Or wait! Are you like the future or past me in Sexy no Jutsu form?" Naruto responded jokingly, trying to make the unsettling feeling he felt go away.

"Naruto, it's me, Tenten..." Tenten sounded slightly annoyed.

"Ah, Tenten..."

A moment of silence followed between the two of them, where Tenten still tried to catch her breath and Naruto was unsure how to proceed.

"WHY THE HELL ARE YOU CALLING ME AT FREAKING SIX AM?!" Naruto snapped, causing Tenten to hold the phone away from her ear and as far as possible in case Naruto would shout even more at her.

"Sssh!...Not so loud, Naruto..." Tenten replied as she dropped herself down on her bed.

Naruto grumbled and asked, "Well...why are you calling me?"

"I did it." Tenten's said with a smile on her face.

"Tenten?! What the hell?! Why are you telling me that?!" Naruto shot up from his bed, "More importantly, who did you do it with?!"

"What?! N-No! Not _that_ it! What are you thinking?! You pervert!...More importantly, why would I call you to tell you that?!"

"Beats me, you just said 'I did it'..." Naruto replied and then muttered, "Stupid Anko...stupid Ero-sennin's Icha Icha Paradise..."

"Yeah, no, not that _it_.I wouldn't just suddenly do _it_. Unless Neji suddenly like jumped on top of me and..." Tenten went silent as a blush formed on her face.

"Tenten..." Naruto replied, "Just so you know...actively fantasizing about Neji makes you a bigger pervert than me..."

"I-I do not fantasize about him!" Tenten retorted.

"Hmmm, maybe I'll go tell Neji you want him to jump on top of you and do perverted things. It's early in the morning after all. I'm sure he'd love to hear that first thing in the morning."

"Naruto, unless you like having kunai shoved in places where the sun doesn't shine, I suggest you stay put and be quiet about any of this, especially to Neji..." Tenten threatened.

"...I think I'll be quiet.." Naruto said after gulping, "So, what _did_ you do then?"

"I sent a reply to that letter I received." She said with a smile on her face.

"Eh?" Naruto let out, perking up and listening closely to what Tenten had to tell him.

"I just rushed to the postal office to get it sent. I worked all night on that letter and wanted it to be sent as soon as possible."

"You...have been writing that letter all night?" Suddenly Naruto felt bad about threatening to tell Neji about what she said earlier.

"Uh huh. That's why I was panting...I had been running as fast as I could to be the first one at the postal office..."

Naruto remembered she thought it was Neji who had written the letter that she had received. Still, it would be Ayame that would receive it for him and Naruto would be the one to read it.

His curiousity got the better of him and so he asked, "What did you write...?"

"I...I can't tell you..." Tenten said, feeling her face brighten at the thought.

Though, Naruto knew he'd find out anyway his curiousity wouldn't be sated that easily, "Oh, come on! I won't tell Neji or anyone else. I won't even let anyone else know that I know!"

"Well...alright then...I wrote that...I was really flattered by how he thought of me...Then...I wrote about the hunch I had that it was Neji and asked if he could tell me whether it was him or not by now...If he wasn't then I wanted to know what he looks like and...stuff...you know...so I knew him a bit better before agreeing to going out on a date or...something...Then...I wrote that whether he was or wasn't Neji didn't matter because...his words make me warm up inside and..."

Naruto was silently listening to her, even when she paused and a silence passed between them.

"Naruto? Are you even listening?"

"Huh? Yeah, yeah! I was just waiting for you to continue..."

"...Really?"

"Of course! You were saying that...his words make you feel warm inside or something right?"

"Hm...yeah, I did...Um, Naruto...? Can I...ask you something?"

"Yeah?" Naruto replied, feeling somewhat insecure about what she was about to ask him.

"Do you think...Neji... likes me?" Tenten asked, staring at the ceiling, wondering how Naruto was going to answer.

Naruto laid back down on his bed and took a deep breath, "...Honestly, I don't know...He doesn't show his emotions other than just showing that he cares about someone as a friend at least...But he hugged you yesterday, right? And you two are always seeing each other, training together and stuff..."

"Yeah, but he only hugged me because I asked him..." Tenten sounded disappointed, as she rolled over onto her right side in her bed.

"Hey, I think I just had an idea to help you...at least...somewhat of an idea..." Naruto replied.

"Huh? Help me? What is it?" Tenten asked excitedly as she slightly rose up from bed, her eyes widening.

"Eh...You and Neji either way are close friends, right?" Naruto scratched his wiskers.

"Uh huh." Tenten nodded as she replied.

"Then...You can ask him about almost anything and he's willing to do a lot for you...as a friend?" Naruto continued his questioning.

"...I think so." Tenten said, though she wasn't quite sure why Naruto was asking this.

"Can't you have him promise that he'll speak the entire truth to a series of question that you want to ask him...And then you ask things you want to know, including what he thinks of you?" Naruto grinned proudly of his plan.

Tenten blushed, she knew it would be hard to have Neji answer honestly to that question and even harder for her to ask him in the first place, but she decided she'd try to ask either way.

"...Thank you, Naruto...I'll give it a try, though I'm almost one-hundred percent sure it won't work...If it does though, I'll owe you one."

"Well, at least you could always try to find out some interesting stuff about him before asking him what he thinks of you!" Naruto grinned widely.

Tenten let out a small giggle, "Yeah, then I could always tease him a little bit here and there. Thanks for the idea, Naruto. Are you home tonight? I want to call you and let you know how it went with Neji."

"Er...I don't know. Most likely I will be, but I'm not entirely sure...Otherwise you can call me tomorrow morning...Though not as early as today, please!"

Tenten giggled, "Alright, then you'll hear from me either tonight or tomorrow morning. Bye, Naruto."

"Bye, Tenten." Naruto said as he hung up and let out a sigh.

"___'His words make me warm up inside', huh...? According to Ayame-chan I mostly said what is written in the letters...So, Tenten likes me? Or at least the way I feel about her? I really need to learn how to talk like Ayame-chan wrote in those letters..."_

"But you know..." Naruto said cheerful to himself, "At least I know I'll be getting one reply! Can't wait to read it! And since I'm wide awake now...Let's eat and start morning training!"

Naruto cheerfully threw a fist into the air and snickered.

Feeling rather energetic at the moment, Naruto jumped out of bed again and took a quick shower. After quickly cooking some ramen for his breakfast, he headed out with the cup and a pair of chop-sticks in his hands, eating as much ramen as possible as he ran down the stairs and once he headed out of the apartment the cup was actually nearly empty.

After quickly finishing what remained of his lovely ramen, he threw the cup and the disposable chopsticks away and headed onward towards the training area.

"Yo, Naruto-kun! You seem energetic today! Your spirit of youth is burning wildly!" Both Lee and Gai exclaimed as they ran along with Naruto.

"Fuzzy Eyebrows? Super Fuzzy Eyebrows-sensei? What are you two doing?" Naruto blinked at the two green spandex-suit wearing men.

"Isn't that obvious, Naruto-kun?! Morning training to help Gai-sensei keep his youthful youthfulness!" Lee answered and struck the nice guy pose while running.

"I promised Kakashi that if I had lost this time that I'd go and follow my young adorable yet strong student for an entire day to get the feeling of his youthfulness and then definitely beat Kakashi next time!" Gai said as he struck the same pose, blinding Naruto now that both 'Beasts from Konoha' made their teeth sparkle in the sunlight.

"So, in other words, you lost again, Super Fuzzy Eyebrows-sensei?" Naruto asked, just because it seemed like he normally would also do something like spending an entire day with Lee anyway.

Gai froze on the spot and slumped down the ground in despair, "...Yes. Yes, I lost. I was this close too. I was certain I had him, when he turned the tables around all of a sudden...Ugh...Am...Am I getting old perhaps? Has the spirit of youth left me?"

"Don't lose heart, Gai-sensei!" Lee cheered his mentor on, "I'm sure you will triumph next time! You always come back stronger than before! The spirit of youth is always with you!"

"Lee! My student!" Gai beamed up, "You truly understand me, don't you?!"

"Gai-sensei!"

"Lee!"

"GAI-SENSEI!"

"LEEEEEEE!"

After a manly embrace and tears that hardly could be considered as such, Gai jumped back to his feet and he and his student struck the nice-guy pose again.

"Spirit of youth revival, successful! Let's keep the pace up!" They chanted in unison.

"_...Honestly, sometimes I wonder how they can change their pace so fast..._" Naruto thought as Gai and Lee's teeth sparkled in the morning sun.

"What about you, Naruto-kun?" Lee asked as he looked curious towards the blonde shinobi, "What are you doing so early?"

"I'm heading out for morning training as well." Naruto grinned widely, hoping that for once his teeth would sparkle and annoy them as well.

As a matter of fact, his teeth did sparkle and Lee and Gai were squinting with their eyes from the light that it emitted.

"Such huge sparkle! Naruto-kun! I will beat that dazzling sparkle of yours!" Lee exclaimed as Naruto's teeth still sparkled.

"That's the spirit, Lee! You shall out-dazzle Naruto-kun's teeth sparkle and prove that you and I are the most youthful persons here in Konoha!"

"Ossu!" Lee saluted his sensei.

"Let's go, Lee!" Gai dramatically pointed out forward into no particular direction as his teeth sparkled again.

"Ossu!" Lee exclaimed as his teeth sparkled for a moment as well before both of Konoha's Beasts ran off at an incredible speed.

Naruto shrugged and let out a sigh, "Really, their pace is way too hard to follow."

As Naruto steadily started getting closer towards the training grounds, he saw Lee and Gai again. However they weren't running this time and Naruto could see why.

"___Ooow...That's gotta hurt..." _Naruto thought as he looked at the telephone pole that now had the imprint of Lee bend into it and Lee, who was now lying down on the ground, clutching on to his face.

"Lee! Hang in there my youthful student!"

"My nose! My beautiful youthful nose!" Naruto heard Lee crying.

"___All he hurt was his nose from that...That's...pretty impressive in a way..._"

"Don't worry, my adorable student! I'll get you to Tsunade-sama this instant and we'll have your youthful nose restored to it's previous youthfulness in no time!" Gai picked Lee up and sat him onto his back and rushed towards the Hokage's Tower, assuming to find Tsunade there at this time in the morning.

"_Is it just me, or do those ____two get weirder every time I see them? ...And to think I have one of their suits lying in my closet back at home..." _Naruto shook his head and headed on towards the training area.

After running a little while, he finally reached the training area where had first become a genin, which was still one of his favourite places to train at. There he found, to his surprise, Sakura leaning on one of the three treelogs facing away from him.

"Good morning, Sakura-chan!" Naruto cheerfully greeted Sakura, waving his arm energetically in the air.

Sakura turned around towards Naruto and he noticed the somewhat sad look on her face before she flashed a smile at him and waved back, "Morning, Naruto. You're up and bright early in the morning."

Naruto ran over towards her, "I could say the same for you, Sakura-chan. I thought the training area wasn't being used at this time, so I headed out extra early."

"Ah...I'm not using it really...Just...thinking and all..."

"You looked kind of sad before you saw me... Sakura-chan...Is something wrong?" Naruto asked, realizing she might have been thinking about Sasuke, considering they were standing at the training grounds where the three of them had become genin.

"Hihi." Sakura giggled and stuck her tongue out at Naruto, "Nothing to worry about, really! Ever since I've become Tsunade-sama's student, I've grown in popularity. Can you believe it? I've been asked out by several guys for Valentine's Day...I even received a love letter! So, I was just reflecting here on...some past decisions and all..."

"Damn it..." Naruto hung down his shoulders in disappointment, "Tsunade-obachan's students become respected and popular...and Ero-sennin's students mostly get zero popularity until they reach a certain level, like Yondaime...Maybe I should've tried to convince Tsunade-obachan to train me or something."

Sakura whacked Naruto around the head, "Idiot! Jiraiya-sama might be a dirty old pervert and a lot of other things according to Tsunade-sama, but he's still one of the Legendary Three! He is the one that brought forth the most powerful shinobi Konoha has ever known! You shouldn't just say things like that..."

"Hehehe! I know, I know!" Naruto laughed, "He has taught me a lot while we were away. But, you know...He isn't really great if you want to be popular and all..."

Sakura giggled after hearing Naruto worrying about popularity, "Don't worry, Naruto. I'm sure people will still like you even with Jiraiya-sama as your sensei. Well...I've got to go now. I still have a letter to bring to the postal office. Naruto, do your best during your training. All that hard work pays off in the end, right?"

"Thanks, Sakura-chan! I'll show you my new jutsu once I'm done with it!" Naruto yelled as Sakura headed off.

"Looking forward to it!" Sakura replied before facing forward again and running off.

Naruto quickly turned around and jogged onto the training field, heading towards the small forest near the river that ran near the training area. Once there, Naruto took out the picture of Jiraiya and Yondaime he had been entrusted the night before.

"Getting his face right shouldn't be that hard...Coming up with my own clothes and voice is going to be more troublesome...Also, keeping the Henge up under most circumstances and for at least 10 hours are my goals in order for this to work out in the end." Naruto nodded to himself.

He decided to first go with just a normal look, trying to get a voice that seemed to fit Yondaime's looks and from there on working out on different clothes.

"Henge!" Naruto exclaimed, performing the single seal.

When the smoke cleared up, Naruto noticed that he was slightly taller then usual, just as he wanted.

The first thing he examined then were his clothes, "___Alright, A dark blue shirt, dark red konoha ____mark on it, blue pants like Kakashi-sensei wears and most other shinobi in Konoha. Casual clothing set, check! Now lets have a look at how well I made my new face..."_

Naruto walked over to the river and glanced down on the water, looking at the image the water reflected. He took out the photo and held it next to his reflection in order to compare the two, "___Alright! Another success! Now all that's left is..."_

"My voice." A cheerful I-have-nothing-to-worry-about-in-the-world like voice came out of Naruto's mouth, "Ah crap that wouldn't fit Yondaime one bit nor would it really fit his looks."

Naruto hung his shoulders down out of disappointment and let out a sigh as he released the transformation.

"Alright, let's come up with a different voice!" Naruto tried to speak some confidence into himself and used Henge again to change into the same looks as he just had, hoping to have it alright this time.

"Yo, I'm Nemar." Naruto said with a laid-back and relaxed voice, "___How the hell did I think up a Kakashi-sensei voice?"_

Naruto tried to get a different voice once more, "Yo, I'm Nemar."

"___Oh my god! Now I sound like Ero-sennin!"_

Just then Naruto heard someone approaching the training grounds and quickly shot back behind a tree.

"Gai-sensei! Naruto-kun isn't here!" Lee sounded like he had a broken nose.

"I know, my adorable yet now injured student! I guess we'll have to use our youthful spirits to find Tsunade-sama on our own now that we didn't find her at her office this early in the morning!"

"Gai-sensei!"

"Lee!"

"Gai-sensei! My nose! My nose!"

"AH! Lee! My student! What have I done to you! Let's find Tsunade-sama quickly and heal your nose!"

Once Naruto heard the two rushing off with their 'youthful spirits', he headed back towards the river. Again he tried to perfect a voice that would seem to fit Yondaime's looks, "Yo, I'm Nemar."

"___AH! NOW I SOUND LIKE FUZZY-EYEBROWS! DAMN IT!" _Naruto mentally shouted as he heard what voice he used for henge this time.

"Alright, this time I'll get it. A voice that deep and dark, powerful and friendly...Focus...Focus...Focus..." Naruto closed his eyes, focused on Yondaime's looks and a voice to match it.

"Henge no jutsu!" Naruto said and after another loud poof, he tried out his voice once again.

"I'm Nemar." Naruto said and blinked, "___Hey this one doesn't sound that bad at all...Let's try some more phrases..."_

"I'm sixteen years old, resident in Hidden Village of Leaf. Nice to meet you." Naruto said, his voice sounding like what he imagined actually fit Yondaime's image a lot more.

"Finally got the voice right...I guess." Naruto said as he looked at his reflection.

"Don't be afraid, I'll protect you no matter what." Naruto said in a serious tone, liking the way the words rolled out of his mouth, he continued on to the next type of speech in his mind.

"You know that you'd do the same in my position." Naruto said and then laughed heartily, again satisfied with how he sound.

"I really had a great time today, I hope you did too." He flashed a grin, that reminded him somewhat of his own but that didn't really matter to him.

"I don't know what it must be like for you...but I think I can understand, even if it's just a little bit..." Naruto closed his eyes at the end, nodding once to himself, being satisfied that his voice was good for any emotion as a voice could possibly be.

"Now let's try to keep this up until noon and all of that while working hard on perfecting Rasengan!" Naruto told himself.

He was getting slowly better at having the chakra randomly rotating in one hand, but it was still far weaker than his own version that he used with help of his Kage Bunshin.

As Naruto closed his eyes and focused chakra in his right hand, a funny thought crossed his mind, "___Heh maybe now that I look like Yondaime, maybe I'll be able to perfect the Rasengan as well."_

Naruto opened his eyes and looked at the rotating blue orb of chakra in his hand. It was rotating but only in a few directions that could obviously be seen. Wanting to figure out how powerful it was this time, Naruto thrust his palm into a nearby tree, "Rasengan!"

As the orb hit the trunk of the tree, it didn't last very long before shattering and leaving a mark behind.

"Just as I thought...I still suck at controlling it with just one hand..." Naruto let out a sigh, "Oh well, better train deeper inside the forest in case anyone plans on coming to this specific training ground and hears me training, only to find someone they've never seen before...most likely."

Naruto put his hands in his pockets, looked around twice and then jumped into the deeper part of the forest. Just as he left, the tree he had hit with his Rasengan cracked and fell back, landing on a tree directly behind it, barely making any sound other than the leafs rubbing against one another.

As Naruto had told himself, he trained until noon, or in other words, he stopped training when his stomach loudly growled out of the need for food. Satisfied with the result of being able to keep Henge up all the time until then, Naruto popped back to his normal looks and headed towards Ichiraku Ramen.

He arrived there soon enough, and was greeted by old man Ichiraku as usual, "Welcome, Naruto! The usual, I presume?" He asked jokingly as he knew Naruto would most of the time order his favourite ramen.

"Of course! How's business today?" Naruto asked grinning widely.

"Ah, we've made enough profit in the morning. Surprisingly so, considering usually you are one of the few that come and eat ramen in the morning..." Ichiraku-san said as he rubbed his chin in thought.

"Well anyway, let's get your ramen up and ready! Ayame, Naruto will have his usual ramen." Ichiraku-san stated as he turned towards his daughter, who was busy preparing more ramen since around lunchtime, usually more people would drop in.

"Good afternoon, Naruto-kun." Ayame smiled at Naruto as she turned around to face him.

"Good afternoon, Ayame-chan! How are you?" Naruto asked grinning widely.

"I'm fine, thank you. Oh! That reminds me! Father, do you mind if I leave for an hour with Naruto-kun after he's done eating his ramen?" Ayame slapped her hands together and begged her father.

Ichiraku-san looked at Naruto, who looked slightly dumbfounded back towards him and then Naruto's stomach loudly grumbled. The old man flashed a grin at Naruto, "Well, it looks like Naruto plans on staying here for a lot of bowls, so you'd better get to work then. Though that hour is coming out of your pay, of course."

"Thank you!" Ayame tilted her head and smiled at her father, "___You greedy old man, you already decided to cut out of my pay for the hours I missed on that date with Naruto that you forced me to take..."_

"Hehehe..." Naruto grinned sheepishly and rubbed the back of his head, "___Wow, I sense a weird atmosphere here...Like someone's plotting something or stuff like that."_

Half an hour and eight bowls of delicious Ramen later, Naruto finally had his stomach full.

"Ah...I'm stuffed...Ramen is extra good after training..." Naruto slouched and let out a joyful and content sigh.

"Then, let us be on our way, Naruto-kun." Ayame said as she walked over towards him from behind the counter.

"And you're leaving me behind with eight huge dishes to clean up?" Ichiraku-san asked as he looked at the pile of dishes he had to clean up from Naruto's lunch.

Ayame stuck out her tongue at her father and grabbed onto Naruto's hand, "Come on Naruto-kun, let's go!"

As Ayame abruptly pulled Naruto from his seat, he needed to start running after her, "Oi! Take it easy, Ayame-chan!"

After pulling him after her for a block, they slowed down a bit, "What's the rush anyway?"

"Don't you want to see if you've gotten any replies?"

"Eh...This fast?" Naruto said before the thought came to his mind that he'd at least be able to read, "Well, I'm certain there is _one _reply, but I don't think we need to hurry to read it, right?"

"Well, I want to read them too, you know. And besides we need to write replies to the replies."

"Then, will an hour be enough?"

"Let's hope so, else you are on your own." Ayame winked and playfully stuck her tongue out at Naruto.

As soon as they arrived at Ayame's house, the mailman did as well, handing a bunch of letters to her before heading on to the next house.

"Naruto-kun, could you open the door for me?" Ayame asked, as she had her hands full carrying the scrolls.

"Eh...sure. Where's your key?"

"It's in my left pocket."

Naruto reached in her left pocket and Ayame slightly turned red as hand gently ran over the thin fabric that was between his fingertips and her leg.

"Ah, there it is." Naruto grinned and pulled the keys out, unlocking the door the next moment.

"Thank you."

Once inside they put the scrolls on the table, Ayame sorted them out and then handed four of them to Naruto, "These belong to you. Looks like it's more than you expected, Naruto-kun. Let's go up to my room so we can start writing as soon as we finished reading all of them."

"Wow...I got four replies." Naruto blinked at the scrolls and as he followed Ayame to her room, he wondered what was written within them.

They sat down across each other on Ayame's bed. Naruto stared at the four scrolls on his lap, still processing the fact that four out of the five he had sent had replied already.

"Well, open the first one then!" Ayame smiled at him, eager to know the contents of the letters for herself as well.

Naruto took a scroll and let the others rest on Ayame's bed. With a quick and swift movement, he opened the scroll and read the first few lines, "It's from Tenten."

"Well...? Come on, tell me what it says."

"Ahem...Alright, here goes..." Naruto replied and scratched his throat.

___Dear Nemar-kun,_

___To sum everything up what your letter did to me, I melted instantly.  
However, I do not know how to reply to be honest...I have an idea about who you might be, but I might as well be dead wrong about that as well.  
Either way, whether you are or aren't him doesn't really matter. Based on what I read in your letter, I still like you the way you are._

___I...never really thought someone would think like that about me. I even cried after I finished it! Isn't that just silly of me? Hehehe... But...I just want to know this first... I want to know if you are Neji. Because that's who I think you are._

___If so, Neji...I'd love to go out on a date with you...All you had to do was ask me in person...  
Oh god, now I'm starting to cry again! Sorry...I'm being kind of emotional at the time I'm writing this...Don't really know why..._

___And...'Nemar-kun', even if you aren't Neji...I'd like to meet you...I want to see if you are just as kind and sweet and...well, all the other things I think you are after reading your sweet letter._

___If you really are someone like that, then I'd gladly go out with you on a date at least once.  
After that we'll see what happens, right?  
Please write back soon. I'm anxiously awaiting your reply.  
Love,_

___Tenten._

"Hmmm...Well, it looks like she really likes that Neji person as well." Ayame's first reply to the letter sounded.

"Yeah, I guess so. I didn't expect her to cry at the end of reading that letter though." Naruto scratched the back of his head, "I kinda feel bad for making her cry."

"Oh, come on Naruto-kun! She cried out of joy that the letter was so sweet! It was your thoughts and feelings for her that made her melt and cry!"

"Yeah, I guess you're right about her crying out of joy. Still, I don't really like to see a girl cry...It makes me feel kind of bad, ehehe." Naruto grinned widely.

"Alright. So, we'll have to set something up for you and Tenten so you can meet then. But we'll discuss those matters later. On to the next letter, Naruto-kun!" Ayame said as she shuffled over to his side, leaned her head on his shoulder so she could read the next letter with him.

"Ah..." Naruto looked over to Ayame's face next to him, "___Wow, she really looks pretty..."_

"Naruto-kun, what's wrong?" She asked as she looked with a slight hint of worry in her eyes at him.

"Ah! Nothing at all! Let's open the next letter!" Naruto waved his hands frantically while grinning sheepishly before opening the next letter.

"Let's see...this one is from...Ino, it seems." Naruto stated as he looked at the sender's address.

___Dear Nemar-kun,_

___Just so you know I'm going to give you a couple of questions right away that I want answered.  
Why? Well, because it's important for me to know and so you instantly can write that in a reply to me, of course!  
Well, let's start the questioning then.  
How tall are you? I don't want to go out with some giant guy that scares the crap out of poor little old me._

___How old are you? If you're some perverted old man I'm going to hunt you down and have you arrested!_

___What color are your eyes?_

___What color is your hair?_

___How much do you weigh? Sorry, but if you're too fat then well...we just wouldn't match, I'm kind of thin you know and I don't believe really in the whole 'Opposites attract' thing..._

___What size shoes do you wear?_

___And since we're on the topic of clothing, what are all your other clothing sizes? Maybe I could get you something cute then on our date and all, hehehe..._

___Oh! And...what...eh...hm...is the size of yo..._

"HOLY CRAP!" Naruto cried out as he threw the scroll away from him like the Kyuubi's claw just snapped out of it, trying to kill him.

"I think...she wants to go out with you." Ayame nodded and then started giggling.

"...I got that, alright...She's probably Anko's prodigy or something..." Naruto said and let out a sigh.

"Oh! That date! How did it go?" Ayame asked, excited to know about Naruto's date last night.

"I'd rather not talk about it, but if you really want to know, I'll tell you later..." Naruto grabbed the next scroll and opened it.

"Oh! This one is from Sakura-chan!" Naruto's mood instantly improved and a huge smile formed on his face.

___Dear Nemar-kun,_

___I don't really know what to say...I'm flattered by your letter.  
But I'd rather not go on a blind date...But I do want to meet you!  
Ehm...Well...This is kind of embarrassing to say but...recently a lot of guys kind of started asking me out and all...  
I think I've grown a bit too popular for my own good, wouldn't you say so?_

___Anyway this might sound a bit bitchy or...whatever but, sorry, you have to go and stand in line along with every other guy that wants a date. But like I said before, I DO want to meet you. Maybe...Maybe if I get to know you a bit better, then I'd go out with you, but not right now without even having the slightest clue about who you are._

___So please, tell me where I could meet you...And it better be a public place or else you are in a lot of trouble, mister! I AM the Hokage's apprentice you know...! Just so you know who you'd get on your ass when you try something weird with me...  
Anyway, let me know where and when and I'll come and meet you in person!  
Buh-bye!_

___Haruno Sakura_

"Oh...Sakura-chan doesn't want to go on a date with me...also I have more competition than I did three years ago it seems..." Naruto pouted.

"But, she wants to meet 'you'. If you give her a good first impression, she might reconsider about whether or not to have a date with you." Ayame said reassuringly to Naruto.

"Yeah, you're right...! Then, I'd better get ready for it! I'll show you my amazing jutsu after this last one!" Naruto cheerfully picked the last scroll.

"It's probably from Hinata...A letter from Sunagakure takes a bit longer to arrive here, probably..." Naruto stated as he opened the scroll, confirming that he was right and that the last letter was from Hinata.

___Dear Nemar-kun,_

___I'm truly honoured that you think of me this way. I was surprised when I got the letter, no one ever sends me a letter, let alone one like this... I even fainted just because of...well...who I thought it was from.  
I'm sorry, please forgive me, but I...can not go out with you._

___I really hope you aren't hurt too bad by this, but...there is someone who I already love with all my heart and so much more. And...and no matter what you say, I won't change my mind about him. I love everything about him._

___His beautiful blonde locks...His shining blue eyes that are filled with joy most of the time...his strong will to become strong and protect his loved ones. But, I just faint every time I'm near him...I doubt he even thinks of me as more than just another friend...  
I really love him no matter what though! Even...even if he..._

___So, that's why I can't go out with you, Nemar-kun. If he'd see us and he did have even the ____slightest hint of feelings for me, then I'd hurt him terribly and I never want to hurt him.  
Please forgive me and I hope we can still meet each other and be friends, if you want to.  
Sincerely,_

___Hyuuga Hinata_

"Hinata likes someone? Wow, I never thought of that..." Naruto rubbed his chin in thought.

"Naruto..."

"Hm? What's wrong, Ayame-chan?" Naruto looked at Ayame with a hint of confusion, as she was reading the letter again.

"Think about it for a second. Who do you know with blonde hair and blue eyes?"

"Ehm...Yondaime Hokage has that but I don't know him personally and he's dead..." Naruto tapped his chin in thought.

"Naruto, didn't you tell me that Hinata always faints around _you_?" Ayame emphasized the last part hoping to get through to him.

"Ehm...Yeah, she does that a lot...I don't really get why though..."

Ayame placed her hands on his cheeks, turned his head towards her mirror and tried to ask him again, "Look in the mirror, Naruto-kun...Who do you know with blue eyes and blonde hair? And who does Hinata faint around?"

"Er...me?"

"That's right. You."

Naruto blinked at his reflection a couple of times and then he slightly jumped up, "EEEH?! ARE YOU TELLING ME HINATA LIKES ME?!"

"Correct." Ayame stuck her tongue out at Naruto in the mirror.

Naruto jumed up from her bed and started freaking out, "But how?! When?! Why?! What should I do?! Oh god! Hinata?! She likes me?! What the in the world?!"

"Hey, Naruto, calm down." Ayame got up from her bed and held Naruto still, "It's obvious, isn't it? You can go out on a date with her. And if all goes well and you like her enough you two can go out on Valentine's Day and become a couple."

"But what about...Sakura-chan...?! And Ino?! And, and Tenten?!"

"We need you to meet all of them as 'Nemar-kun', so you can still go out with them if needed be and all. Listen up. We'll just write one letter that is directed at all the girls and tell them you'll be meeting them on a certain time and place or something...Also, if Temari sends in a reply later we have always the chance to have 'Nemar-kun' meet her later since she's in Sunagakure anyway...Do you understand?"

Naruto nodded and Ayame let go off him as he had finally calmed down.

"Then, I can meet all of them tomorrow!" Naruto flashed a grin.

"Huh? How so?" Ayame looked confused at Naruto, who was still grinning.

"I already figured out who to henge in and all. That's what I wanted to show you!"

Ayame smiled warmly at Naruto, "Well, go ahead and show me then."

Naruto cracked his knuckles, "Alright...Here goes..." He smirked and formed the 'henge-handseal'.

Naruto didn't even need to speak out the words anymore and just transformed into Yondaime Hokage, with his own set of clothing. Ayame blinked and stared at him as the smoke slowly vanished.

"I'm Nemar. Nice to meet you." Naruto said and instantly, Ayame's eyes seemed to sparkle as she slowly stumbled forward towards him.

"Is something wrong Ayame-chan? You look...different."

Ayame got as close as her body could to Naruto, who eyed her kind of awkwardly as she stared into his eyes.

"Ayame-chan?" Naruto placed a hand on Ayame's arm, something he regretted a moment later as Ayame squealed as loud as humanly possible and then fainted into Naruto's arms.

"___What in the...?" _Naruto thought as he picked Ayame up and carefully laid her down on her bed.

A couple of moments later, Ayame slowly opened her eyes again.

"Ayame-chan? Are you alright? You just passed out, just like that." Naruto blinked at her, still being in his Yondaime form.

"Naruto...?" Naruto nodded in reply.

Ayame squealed again, this time less loud than the last time, jumped onto Naruto and brought him down on the floor.

"CUTE! TOO CUTE!" Ayame exclaimed as she looked looked at Naruto's face again, before dropping her body onto his and tightly hugging him.

"You're so cute! Not to mention extremely hot!" Ayame gave Naruto a kiss on his cheek,"Hug me, Naruto! Kiss me, Naruto! Anything!"

Ayame squealed again and rubbed her cheek against Naruto's. Naruto slightly pushed Ayame up, so he could breath normally at least, "Eh...Ayame-chan? Do you know what you are saying?"

Ayame stared into Naruto's confused eyes, that were looking awkwardly at her as well, and she flushed red, "Of course I do. Right now, you're the hottest guy I've seen in a long while!"

"Well, I guess Yondaime was as good looking as Ero-sennin said then." Naruto grinned sheepishly, not really sure where all this would lead.

"Really...You look so cute, Naruto-kun." Ayame let out a sigh and rested her head on Naruto's chest, "I wish that guys like him were more common..."

"Ehm...Ayame-chan?"

Ayame tilted her head up and looked at Naruto, "Yeah?"

"Even though I like you complimenting on the succes of my new Henge no Jutsu, we still have to write those letters..." Naruto said before adding softly, "...and it's kinda hard to breathe with you pressing the life out of my body..."

Ayame sat straight up on Naruto, putting all of her weight onto Naruto's stomach, "What was that! Are you telling me I'm heavy?!"

"Ah! Ayame-chan!"

"Don't 'Ayame-chan' me! You're telling me that I'm fat?!"

"You aren't! But you're pushing the life out of my body!"

"If you were at least just a bit man you would be able to resist a feather light women like me!"

"Ayame-chan!"

"Oh no, you're not going to pass out, mister! Not because of just my body!"

"Naruto-kun?" She let out when Naruto stopped replying.

"Alright then...Time to give CPR to the hotty." Ayame smirked and got off Naruto to give him CPR.

"AH! ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT! I'M ALIVE AND WELL! NO CPR! I NEED A GOOD NIGHT'S REST!" Naruto jumped up and looked frightened at Ayame, who was sitting on her knees next to where he had been lying only a second ago.

"...I...give you...bad dreams?" Ayame asked and Naruto could notice there was an obvious hint of sadness in her voice.

"No, no. that's not it. Really. Though I'd rather not say what it is though...But you don't give me nightmares! At all! Unless you maybe like put on a very scary face and jump out of the dark all of a sudden or something..." Naruto said as he sheepishly smiled and rubbed the back of his head.

Ayame blinked at Naruto, though she was happy she didn't give Naruto nightmares, the other thought of that he did dream about her began to sink in.

"Oh my gosh! Naruto!" Ayame pointed at his face as she stood up rather abruptly with a look of shock on her face, "You mean you..."

"Huh...what?"

"You mean you actually dream _those _kind of dreams about me!"

"Huh? _Those_ kind of dreams?" Naruto had a clueless expression on his face as he looked at Ayame, who slowly backed away until she hit the wall behind her.

"I don't know what to say, Naruto...Should I feel honored or be afraid..."

"Wh-Who knows...? I'm not sure what you're talking about, ehehehe...What are _those_ kind of dreams?" Naruto asked innocently, scratching his cheek, "_There's no way she knows exactly what I dreamed...right?_"

"You're even going to try and make me say it out loud? Naruto, you're awful..." Ayame avoided his gaze to the best of her ability and tried to hide the bright red blush on her face.

"Eh...no, I...I didn't...uhm..." Naruto let out, not sure if anything he could say at this point would help him.

A silence followed that Naruto felt was all too awkward, until he heard Ayame giggle.

'Uhm...Ayame-chan?" Naruto tilted his head in wonder as Ayame threw a wonderful smile.

"I'm awful for teasing you like this, I suppose. Let's pretend this conversation never happened, shall we? It's probably the best for both of us." She declared.

"I guess? If you say so..." Naruto said tipping his head over to his other shoulder, feeling more and more unsure as to what was really going on inside Ayame's mind.

"I have to say though, seeing you at a loss for words in that form is...odd. You better not do that on your dates." Ayame replied as she walked back to her bed.

Naruto looked at himself and realized he was still maintaining the Henge no Jutsu to look like the Fourth. He canceled the technique and shrugged, "I'm pretty sure I won't be having conversations like the one we just had, so I should be fine."

"Well, you never know. I got an idea for the replies we're sending to these letters though, so let's stop messing around and get to it, shall we?" Ayame said as she hopped back onto her bed, "Oh, and go visit Hinata-chan later today. The sooner we know if the person she likes really is you, the better!"

"Hehehe...That will be hard to do...I have the feeling she'll just faint again and her family will probably hate me for it...Her old man's pretty scary from what I remember. Maybe it's best if I don't go there...? Ahahaha." Naruto laughed sheepishly.

"I don't care about any of that. Just go, Naruto. It's a mission of love or death." Ayame said and stuck her tongue out at Naruto.

"Mission, huh..." Naruto let out a sigh, feeling Shikamaru's most common thought going through his head, "___This is going to be troublesome..."_

About an hour later, Naruto's heart was pounding as he was standing in front of a door, staring at the scroll he was holding in his hands.

"Haruno Residence." It read on the name plate that was crafted onto the front door.

"Mom! I'll be heading out now!" Naruto heard Sakura's voice yell from inside.

"___Crap!_" Naruto quickly dropped the scroll onto the floor and quickly ran away.

Just as the door opened, Naruto disappeared around the corner and Sakura noted the scroll lying on the floor as she nearly stepped on it.

"Huh...A scroll? That's odd...Who is it addressed to?" Sakura said as she picked it up from the ground.

"To: Haruno Sakura, Yamanka Ino, Hyuuga Hinata and Tenten..." Sakura read out loud and blinked at the scroll.

Naruto ran as fast as he could, in case Sakura still noticed him going around the corner.

His pace did not slow one bit until he was far away from Sakura's house, to be precise, near the Hokage's Tower, "Damn, that was scary...If she had seen me I'd be in a lot of trouble..."

Two particular green suited men then got Naruto's attention with their loud voices.

"Hokage-sama is amazing with medical jutsu, isn't she my adorable student Lee!"

"Hai, Gai-sensei! She is truly amazing! I barely feel pain in my broken youthful nose!" Lee saluted his sensei.

"And she's burning with youth as well! Lee! I think I'm going ask her hand in marriage so we can have many youthful children!"

"Eh..." Naruto walked up towards the duo, "Gai-sensei, you...really considering to ask Tsunade-obachan to marry you...?"

As Naruto look dumbfounded towards Gai as he struck the nice guy pose, "Of course I am! She's brimming with the spirit of youth and therefore she is the only woman worthy to marry my youthfulness!"

"Gai-sensei! Can I be the big brother to all your youthful children!"

"Of course Lee!" Gai said pointing his nice guy pose at Lee and his teeth sparkling once again, "We'll adopt you right away!"

"O-Ossu!" Lee straightend up again and saluted once more.

"Now I shall go back inside and ask Tsunade-sama to marry me!" Gai said and headed back towards the Hokage's Tower.

"...Oh boy...Who should I feel more sorry for, Tsunade-obachan being embarrassed by him or Gai-sensei for getting punched in the face by Tsunade-obachan..." Naruto let out a sigh.

"I refuse!" Just as Gai was about to head into the tower, Anko's voice came yelling out of it followed by a flying Jiraiya with a red hand print on his face.

Jiraiya knocked into Gai, sending the youthful noble green beast of Konoha flying back as well, gasping for air and soon they both landed on top of Lee, who fell face down on the ground as he tried to escape the flying men.

As they lay down on the ground, steaming off from the high velocity at which they traveled through the air and from Anko's slap to Jiraiya's face, said female jounin took a step out of the Hokage's Tower and pointed towards Jiraiya, "I'd never go out for dinner with a dirty old lech like you!"

Naruto blinked at the pile of men in green and the Ero-sennin lying on top of both of the green beasts of Konoha, only to realize a second later that Anko could see him. Before he knew what happened, Anko was behind him with her arms wrapped around him, "Yo Naru-chan. Do you feel like having a second date with lil' old me?"

Naruto carefully turned his head towards the widely grining Anko. She had his full attention, but that was mainly because he thought he felt some crawling over his back.

"Jiraiya-sama! What are you doing! I was just about to declare my pure and youthful love to Tsunade-sama and ask her hand in marriage!" Gai shouted, drawing Naruto's attention back to the three men.

Jiraiya jumped off them and pointed at Gai, "You were about to what! Like Tsunade would marry a guy like you!"

"Of course! She's burning with youth and so am I!"

"You'd drive her nuts!"

"I wouldn't! I'd have her carry my youthful babies!"

"Even though she looks like twenty, she's over fifty! She can't have babies!"

"Oh yes she can! Her youthfulness will make sure of that!"

"My nose! My nose! It's bleeding again!" Lee wailed in between the two arguing men.

"My...They're so loud..." Anko said as she looked with one eye towards the men and held her other one shut, "How about we go to...Naru-chan?"

Anko noticed that Naruto was missing from her hold and thus she was holding nothing but air and frantically looked for Naruto around her, "Naru-chan?!"

"Sorry, Anko-_sensei_! I have something else to do! Maybe we'll chat again!" Naruto shouted as he darted off as fast as possible, before adding in a whisper, "...like in my next life."

"Naru-chan! Don't leave me with these goofballs!" Anko cried out.

"Sorry, can't hear youuuuu!" Naruto yelled and ran around the nearest corner and out of sight.

Meanwhile, the heated argument between Gai and Jiraiya reached it's climax.

"Alright, that's it! I'll show you that Tsunade wants someone that isn't some crazy lunatic!"

"What was that! Am I crazy?! I'm burning with youth! I can not be crazy!"

"The hell you are!" Jiraiya quickly formed a couple of handseals as the soil underneath Gai's feet began to soften and sink the noble green beast of Konoha into it.

"Ah! That's unfair, Jiraiya-sama!" Gai said as he tried to pull his feet out.

"Like I care!" Jiraiya said and then quickly ran into the Hokage's Tower, passing by some chuunin and jounin that were on their way to do their own business.

As he reached Tsunade's office he slammed the door wide open, "Tsunade!"

Shizune jumped at the sudden entrance of Jiraiya while Tsunade just looked dully at him, "What is it this time, Jiraiya..."

Jiraiya jogged over towards her in sennin-style, surprising Tsunade when he kneeled down besides her and took her hand, "Will you marry me?"

Shizune gasped in shock as did Tsunade and a cold breeze passed through the room as Jiraiya awaited Tsunade's answer.

In the time it took for Jiraiya to trap Gai and run all the way through the Hokage tower, Naruto had run all the way to his next destination, the Hyuuga compound.

As he was catching his breath from his escape from the, for him at least, ever scary Anko at full speed for what felt like ages, Naruto glanced into the Hyuuga's courtyard to see if he could find the heiress of Hyuuga main family. Unfortunately for him, Hinata was nowhere to be found. Neji, however, was making his through the courtyard, which was the second best thing that could happen to Naruto.

"___I'm lucky...I'd hate to go and ask Hinata's father for being accepted into the compound...He looks so strict and perhaps like...overprotective or something..." _Naruto thought as he quickly headed towards Neji, "Yo Neji!"

Neji, who was just about to enter a different part of the compound turned around to face Naruto, "Naruto? That's a surprise...I never thought I'd find you visiting us here..."

"Ah...Well, you know..." Naruto sheepishly grinned and rubbed the back of his head, "I kinda...came here to see Hinata...Do you know where she is?"

"Hinata-sama...?" Neji blinked a couple of times at Naruto, "...She's in the second garden. Most likely taking a swim in the small lake we built there, as it has become her second favourite activity...I'll show you the way."

"Second garden...?" Naruto looked dumbfounded towards Neji as he followed him to where Hinata was.

"Yes. We have two gardens, and as a matter of fact also two courtyards...One is open and is able to be viewed by the 'public' that climb over the compound walls...The other is more...concealed from nosy outsiders and is a place of recreation for most of us. Hinata-sama likes to go and take a swim there from time to time."

"I see...Your uncle must have a ton of money for something like that." Naruto nodded.

Neji glanced towards Naruto, "...We're here."

Naruto looked forward and saw a path leading through various vines and bushes, "Eh! It looks like a jungle there! How am I going to find her!"

"Don't worry, it might not look like it but we used some spray from the Aburame clan to keep annoying and dangerous insects away. The plants there are all harmless. The small lake Hinata-sama is most likely at, is easily found as long as you follow the path. And since I have some matters to attend to, I'll leave you to find Hinata-sama on your own. If you don't mind." Neji stated.

"Eh, I guess that's not that hard then? Catch you later, Neji."

Neji nodded at Naruto before parting ways with him, leaving Naruto standing in front of the path to the second garden.

Naruto gulped and then starting heading down the path in front of him, pushing away the vine that obstructed the entrance to the garden. His worries and fears of the dangerous looking garden soon vanished as he was greeted by beautiful exotic flowers and singing birds from the trees.

After wandering over the path for a short while, it widened and a small creek joined it with water steadily heading towards a single direction. Figuring the water lead towards the lake where Hinata was supposed to be, Naruto decided to follow the creek and see where it lead.

A little over a minute later, Naruto found the lake he was searching for yet the young Hyuuga heiress was nowhere to be found.

"Damn. Looks like I missed her..." Naruto said as he was just about to turn around when he heard the splashing sound of water.

Hinata rose up in the center of the small lake, water still dripping of her hair from her dive out of it.

The water drops that fell off her shined in all the colors of a rainbow due to the sunrays that managed to pierce through the roof of vines and leaves, Naruto being amazed by the sight and spoke his thoughts out loud, "Wow...Talk about beautiful..."

Hinata's face turned into a state of surprise upon hearing the familiar voice and she turned towards the direction from which the sound came, "N-Na...Naruto-kun?"

"Yo Hinata." Naruto grinned sheepishly at the young lady from the Hyuuga clan and rubbed the back of his head.

Her face flushed red as she realized Naruto was really standing there, "___Naruto-kun...He's...he's really standing there...I'm not dreaming!" _She thought and then something else hit her in her mind.

"Kyaaa!" Hinata screamed yet not too loud and quickly dropped down into the water until it covered all the way up to her mouth as she blushed a deep shade of red.

She followed him with her eyes as Naruto walked around the shore of the lake, "This looks really great...Hope you won't mind if I just jump in."

"Eh?" Hinata let out as Naruto grinned widely at her with his usual grin, "___Naruto-kun...is going to...oh my..."_

Hinata flushed a deeper shade of red and turned around to face away from Naruto as he began to take off his clothes.

Naruto stripped down to his boxers and then dived into the lake and spoke up once he stuck out above the surface once more, "Wow! This is amazing! The water feels so good!"

Hinata shyly nodded and Naruto made his way towards her enjoying the lake's pure water as he did so, "Hey, Hinata. I know this is sudden, but I came here to have a talk with you. Face to face, that is."

She nodded once again and shyly looked towards Naruto, who was now standing only a few inches away from her. Hinata put her hand towards her lips and took a slight step back, scared of fainting from standing this close to Naruto.

"You came to...talk to me?...W-why?"

"Well...I've got something to ask you." Naruto grinned and rubbed the back of his head again.

"A-ask me!...Wha-what is it?" Hinata asked, growing more nervous every second.

Naruto blinked at Hinata, who was turning brighter red as time passed as well.

"Listen, It's really important to well...both of us, so please don't faint around me like you usually do!" Naruto grabbed a hold of her hands, pulling her look up towards him as she blushed so badly that she felt like fainting, but she refrained from that by biting on her lower lip.

"I...I'll try my best...Wha...wha...what...d-d-do..." Hinata stumbled over her own words as Naruto still hold her hands and her mind was longing to find out what it was he wanted to ask her.

Her mind had already imagined the possible situation being her over reacting to something like this while the question would be, "Could you lend me some money! I'm short of my regular nine bowls of miso ramen!" and then her reply would be nothing but disappointingly calling out his name.

Naruto stared into her eyes and knew that she was about to faint as she averted her eyes and trembled ever so slightly.

"I...wanted to ask if..." Naruto started, hoping she really wouldn't pass out halfway during his question.

"Y-yes?"

"If you wanted to go out with me... tonight...?"

Hinata's mouth dropped open, her hands fell out of Naruto's and she felt her entire body go numb. The red shade on her face disappeared and she felt light headed as her entire face went pale white and her body swayed back and forth, before her eyes shot towards the heavens and she passed out.

"Oi! Hinata!" Naruto had caught the out cold Hyuuga girl in his arms, hoping that she heard his question at least and remembered it.

"Come on, let's get you back to solid ground so you won't drown...I can't hold you here forever if you're going to pass out continuously or something..." Naruto whispered to Hinata, who was still unconscious, as he wrapped an arm around her and started swimming back to the shore with her.

"Oneesan, I've come to..." A young girl's voice reached Naruto's ears, making him turn towards the entrance of the lake.

There, he found a girl that resembled Hinata a lot, only with sleek long hair and a slimmer body than Hinata's. She stared towards Naruto and he stared back at her until she yelled loudly, "Oh my god! A pervert! What do you think you're doing to my oneesan?!"

"Huh..." Naruto looked shocked towards her as the young girl start running over the water towards him, "No! This is a misunderstanding! I'm not a pervert!"

"I won't listen to your lies!" The girl cried out as she readied her open palms to strike Naruto.

Just then, Hinata woke up, noticing her sister charging towards her and Naruto, not even paying mind that Naruto was holding her and sped forward to stop her sister from hurting her love, "Stop, Hanabi! He's a friend of mine."

Hinata pulled herself out of Naruto's arms and stopped her sister by pulling her into the water.

"Geez...How was I supposed to know something like that, oneesan?" Hanabi pouted as she was now floating in front of Hinata in the water, "Besides what was he doing then? Holding you like that and all?"

"H-holding me?!"

"Sorry Hinata, you passed out so I wanted to take you to shore so you wouldn't drown or something...uh..." Naruto stared towards Hinata's back.

"T...thank you N..Naruto-ku..."

"Don't turn around!" Naruto quickly spun around and pointed towards her with one arm, "Y-your top..."

"Heh...?" Hinata looked down to her bikini top along with her sister and noticed that it had been untied on the back, making it partly float in the water and yet still holding onto her behind her neck.

Hinata shrieked and Hanabi pointed at her sister's bikini top and then at Naruto, "See! He wanted to do H stuff to you!"

"No, I didn't! Now hurry up and tie it up already so I can turn back around!"

Hinata flushed red and turned her back towards Hanabi, "Hanabi...would you please...?"

Her younger sister let out a sigh and helped her sister out.

A while later, Hinata and Naruto were standing on the shore and Hanabi was swimming in circles. Hinata had a towel wrapped around her shoulders and offered another towel to Naruto, "H-here...You c-can use this one...Naruto-kun..."

"Thank you Hinata." Naruto smiled warmly at her as he took the towel and dried his torso with it before laying it over his shoulder.

"Eh...ehm...you're...welcome..." Hinata said in a whisper.

"Do you... remember what I asked you before you passed out?"

"Ehm...you..." Hinata said as a shade of red once again appeared on her face, "asked me out?"

"Yeah. So...are you available tonight?" Naruto looked away, feeling embarrassed to ask the same question again.

"I'd love to go out with you...I mean...Yes! Of course! I have time! Kiba-kun and Shino-kun haven't scheduled training or something! Nor does my father or...something." Hinata was nervous, and for the first time she actually was talking really fast, not knowing what kind of responses to give to Naruto.

"The only point is I don't really know where to take you...Since I kinda feel like eating ramen tonight and I don't want to take you out to something like Ichiraku's ramen..." Naruto grinned sheepishly.

"..E-Eating r-ramen...w...with Naruto-kun...w-would be nice as well..."

"Nah, I'd just be stuffing my face and it wouldn't really be fun for you at all..." Naruto replied grinning widely.

"Fun...for me?"

"Come to think of it I don't know that much about you other then that you are a sweet girl." Naruto tapped his chin in thought as Hinata blushed bright red.

"Say, Hinata...What would you like to do with me?"

"Wha-wha-what I'd like to do with...Naruto-kun?" Hinata's face turned as red as a full grown tomato as a train of thoughts went through her mind of what she'd like to do with him.

Naruto looked surprised towards her as she started mumbling a lot of things, looking away from him and glancing at him in between mumbled phrases.

"Hey, I know something! Why don't we just go and see what we can do like start off with a walk through the park and then see if we can find something fun to do while we get to know each other a bit more!" Naruto proposed.

Hinata mumbled a couple of more things, glanced less than a second at his boxers before turning even brighter red in her face and then she snapped out of it as Naruto's words sank in, "Ah! uhm...y-yes...I'd like to g-g-et to know you a bit...better..."

Naruto grinned as he quickly dried the rest of his body with the towel and got his boxers as dry as possible before slipping back into his clothing.

Hinata held a finger against her lips and still blushed as Naruto was done getting dressed again.

"Then I'll pick you up at seven, if that's alright with you." Naruto stated and Hinata shyly nodded.

As there was a silence between them, and Naruto didn't know really what to say, he decided to take a closer look on Hinata, who was still in her bikini.

"___Wow...Hinata is quite good looking...I never noticed it with the clothes she wears but she really has a nice figure..."_

Naruto took Hinata's hand away from her face and tilted his head to the right and then to the left, examining and evaluating Hinata in this new light he had found her as the Hyuuga heiress gave him a confused look.

"S...Something w-wrong...Naruto-kun?" She asked hestitantly.

"Hinata..."

"Y-yes...?"

Naruto let his eyes wander over her one last time before realizing how fast Hinata fainted and thus he decided to flash his wide grin, "Ah. Never mind. I don't want you to faint again really."

"Eh...?" Hinata let out as Naruto dropped her hands and walked past her.

"I better be going now. See you tonight." Naruto stated as he continued walking onwards.

"W-wait! N-na..Naruto-kun...!" Hinata said as she hurried after him.

"My sister really acts weird sometimes..." Hanabi told herself as she continued swimming in the lake.

"What's wrong, Hinata?" Naruto asked once Hinata had caught up with him.

"Eh...ehm...w-would N-Naruto-kun...w-wait for me to...get dressed a-and...then...p-perhaps..." Hinata said fidgeting with her fingers before adding softly, "...spend some more time with me...?"

"Well, I don't really have other plans for today really...Well, not until seven tonight of course." Naruto flashed a grin at Hinata, "Sure, I'll wait for you and all."

Hinata looked with wide eyes at Naruto and blushed before heading on to her room where she could get dressed.

"___Wow...She really does like me, I guess...I thought it was normal for her to act like this around all guys except maybe Kiba and Shino right now...but she really blushes a lot more around me then around other people..."_

Naruto followed Hinata to her room and along the entire way they hadn't spoken a word to each other, yet Naruto felt the silence between them wasn't awkward. When Hinata headed into her room and closed the door behind her, Naruto leaned against it and waited a few moments before speaking up, "Hinata?"

Naruto waited for Hinata to reply before continue to speak up and after a second or two she finally did, "Y-yes Naruto-kun...?"

"Do you think...that I'm scary?" Naruto asked as he remembered what Ayame said on his date with her about that Hinata might be scared of him and that it was because of that she passed out. Although Ayame said it was a joke, it could still have been a possibility.

"N-no...Of course n-not...Na-Naruto-kun...isn't scary...Did N-Naruto-kun think that...I thought of Na...Naruto-kun as a...scary person?"

"No." Naruto smiled widely, "It was just that might be the reason why you faint every time I'm near you...that or the other thing I had in mind. And since you don't find me scary, it is the other thing, right?"

In her room, half dressed Hinata flushed red and waited for Naruto to say more, wondering what he'd say.

"___I know what it really is...but it's still too soon to let you know so, sorry Hinata..._" Naruto grinned to himself and spoke up, "That you faint because the power I'm radiating! Must be a lot of pressure to feel for some girls!"

Hinata hung her head down in disappointment,"...Naruto-kun..."

Naruto chuckled for a moment and then Hinata smiled to herself before giggling a little bit.

"Oi, what's so funny!" Naruto asked grinning, though Hinata didn't see the wide grin on his face and thought he was mad at her.

"S-sorry...N-naruto-kun...I...I didn't mean...I wasn't...please...d-don't be m-mad a-at me..."

Naruto blinked at hearing Hinata almost burst out in tears and then knew exactly what would cheer her up.

Laughing heartily before speaking up again would most likely do the trick, "Weird girl. I wouldn't get mad at you for being happy. I guess it's one of the things I like about you. Always wanting to spread love through the world and make sure everyone's happy."

"I...I'm sorry..." Hinata said in a soft tone but loud enough so Naruto could still hear it.  
"Siiiilly." Naruto said playfully, "There's no need to apologize. Just hurry up and get dressed. If you take too long, I'll have to go again."

"Done!" Hinata said as she quickly pulled the door open. Naruto who was leaning against it fell back by loss of the support to his back and fell on top of Hinata.

"Geez...That was quite a surprise...I didn't expect you to be in such a rush." Naruto said as he got off Hinata and rubbed his sore butt before flashing a grin at her.

"S-sorry..."

"Ah, don't worry about it. I'm more worried about hurting you than getting hurt myself." Naruto said as he got up and dusted himself off before helping, although she didn't really need it, Hinata up from the floor as well.

Hinata flushed red, still feeling the warmth of Naruto's body on her own as Naruto just grinned at her.

"Well...ehh..Let's get going or something, right?" Naruto asked and Hinata only shyly nodded in reply.

As they walked back out to the courtyard, a silence hung between the two of them as it did before.

"Hey Hinata! ...Naruto? What are you doing here?" Sakura yelled from the entrance of the Hyuuga compound.

"Sakura-san?"

"Sakure-chan?!" Naruto said at the same time as Hinata, the only difference being Naruto's eyes widening, "___Oh crap! I forgot that she'd go and visit all of the girls!"_

Just then Ino walked up next to Sakura, looking rather annoyed at the world of some reason and followed behind her was Tenten, whose gaze was constantly fixated at the ground for some reason.

"What are you all doing here?" Naruto asked, pretending to not know why they were here.

"None of your business, Naruto..." Ino said and stuck her nose up in the air.

"___Oh boy, she really is annoyed...Yesterday she was all friendly and stuff and today she's like this...man, am I glad I'm not 'Nemar' right now or what..."_

"Tenten, do you mind telling me why?" Naruto asked grinning at Tenten, as he considered Ino to be far too annoyed or pissed off to try once again, "I'm sure it isn't because of me or Hinata for that matter, right?"

"Actually Naruto..." Sakura spoke up before Tenten could even reply and looked at the scroll.

Just as Sakura wanted to state that they were there for Hinata, Tenten interrupted her, "Naruto! Where's Neji?!"

"Neji...?" Naruto repeated as Hinata looked equally confused at the weapons mistress.

Tenten's eyes saddened for a moment before she abruptly ran past Hinata and Naruto and into the courtyard.

"Hey Tenten! Wait up!" Naruto called after her before running after her.

Sakura blinked at the two for a moment then turned towards Hinata, "Hinata, we came to get you as we have a message for you and...well...Ino, Tenten and myself as well apparently..."

"Huh...?" Hinata said dreamy.

Naruto ran as fast as he could after Tenten, who ran through the halls of the Hyuuga compound in search of Neji. He didn't know what really made him run after Tenten in the first place.

Maybe to stop her from getting more heartbroken than she already was. Then again, maybe he'd be in the way of her confession to Neji in a few minutes and have the Hyuuga turn the girl down because Naruto was around and he didn't want to lose his 'reputation' or something.

A countless number of possibilities ran through Naruto's head what could be the situation in a couple of minutes, yet there was one he didn't even think about. Tenten stopped at the end of a hallway and Naruto stopped a feet or two behind her.

"Naruto..." Naruto heard her say and he decided to listen to what she wanted to say to him.

"I'm...an idiot, am I not?"

Naruto's face looked stunned for a moment, before he grinned widely with his usual fox grin, even though she couldn't see it, and placed his heads behind his head "What are you saying? You're no idiot. I'm supposed to be the biggest idiot of them all and you are way smarter than me. All that distance calculating and stuff with weapons. I'd never be able to do that. You're smart, Tenten."

Tenten turned around to face Naruto and streams of tears ran over her cheeks, "That's not what makes me an idiot...I'm an idiot for believing that he'd actually write something like that..."

Naruto blinked at her, pretending not to know that Neji wasn't the guy that wrote her a love letter and that it wasn't in fact Naruto himself who did so, "You found out it wasn't him?"

Tenten stumbled forward and suddenly hugged Naruto and cried onto his shoulder, "I wanted it to be him so badly...I'm an idiot."

"Then...If you like him why won't you just say so?" Naruto asked as he looked down towards Tenten who still let tears run freely onto his shoulder.

"Don't be foolish..." She cried, "A guy like him would just coldly ignore any confession...And...and...I don't want to lose him as a friend..."

Naruto placed his hands on her back as she softly sniffed before resting his head on hers and closing his eyes, "It's going to be alright..."

Tenten's sniffing stopped but she still continued letting tears run from her eyes onto Naruto's shirt.

Unnoticed by the two young shinobi, a certain Hyuuga from the Branch Family stood around the corner with his Byakugan activated. He saw the two hugging each other and he had only been there for a split second, missing the fact that Tenten was crying out on Naruto's shoulder.

Shocked to find the two of them here, he gritted his teeth tightly, not moving from his spot.

"Alright, let's head back to the others now...ok?" Naruto whispered.

Tenten softly nodded and pulled herself away from Naruto, who in return let go of her, though he held a arm around her shoulder for comfort to make sure she'd feel alright and the two of them walked back towards the others.

Unknown to them, around the corner on the other side, Neji tightened his grasp on a scroll. A second later he threw it up into the air and with a fierce swipe of his feet, snapped the scroll into two.

"To Ten..." One half said as the other half read the remainder of the person who it was addressed to, "Ten."

With anger raging through his body, the young Hyuuga Prodigy turned around and fiercely walked back towards his room.

Meanwhile, Naruto and Tenten were making their way back towards the courtyard. Tenten felt relieved and was already joking around with Naruto though her apology about wetting his shirt was sincere, "I'm sorry I messed up your shirt, Naruto."

"Hehe. Don't worry about it. I bet it felt good to let it all come out or something like that. But you know. Even though that guy isn't Neji, you still liked what he said in his letter right?"

Tenten grinned shortly at him but her grin grimaced before she spoke up, "Yeah...But I'm not the only one he likes...He also likes Sakura, Ino and Hinata..."

"Well...er...maybe he just doesn't know which great kunoichi to chose! I mean your all really great and stuff!"

Tenten stared at him for a second and then started laughing at him, "Thanks, Naruto. I appreciate the compliment, even though I didn't expect it from someone like you."

Realizing what he just had said, Naruto waved his hands energetically, "I...I don't mean it that way! Really! I just think you all like...gotten a whole lot stronger since two and a half years ago! That's all!"

"That's another compliment, Naruto." Tenten said still snickering about Naruto feeling embarrassed for complimenting her and the others.

Tenten's laughter was what made Hinata, Ino and Sakura take notice of the two shinobi approaching them.

"Oh...This is a surprise..." Ino said as she noticed Tenten's sudden cheerful mood and the large wet stain on Naruto's shirt.

"Huh? What is?" Naruto asked.

"Naruto...Why didn't you tell us Tenten was your..." Ino said teasingly as she raised a pinky at him.

Tenten slightly blushed as did Naruto as he looked with wide eyes at Ino and Hinata shyly towards Naruto.

"N-No, we're not...!" Naruto replied, "___Well at least she is in a slightly better mood now as well..._"

"Oh...really, huh?" Ino said teasing as she nudged Tenten who just looked moderately annoyed towards Ino.

"Na-Naruto-kun?" Hinata stuttered as she looked Naruto, who looked back at her at this point.

"No, really, Hinata. Tenten and I are friends, nothing else!"

Sakura decided to join Ino in teasing her blonde team-mate as apparently he was getting quite embarrassed from the entire situation, "Oh...Why are you apologizing like that towards Hinata...maybe...Do you like Hinata then?"

"Sakura-chan! Not you too! I-It's not like I like Hinata or anything!"

"...Na...Naruto-kun..." Hinata said as her eyes saddened.

"N-no! Hinata! I didn't meant to...! I do like you!"

"Ohh...Was that a confession I just heard, Sakura?"

"Ahh...I wonder about that too, Ino..." The two girls grinned wickedly at Naruto.

"N-no not a confession, no-not at all! Come on, Sakura-chan! You know I like you!"  
At this point, Tenten decided it was time to give some payback, even though Sakura had to be the victim, "My...Sakura...I believe that _was _a confession..."

"No, it wasn't...!" Sakura gasped and threw a quick glare at Tenten and Naruto.

Naruto's eyes shifted back and forth between all of them before he jumped back and made his famous seal, "Looks like I have no choice then."

The girls looked at Naruto, wondering if he was actually going to fight them.

"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" Naruto shouted and four clones were created, "Hug version!"

The girls' mouths hang open as the final two words ringed through their ears before they let out an echoed reaction of surprise, "E-Eeeeeeeeeh!"

"Alright everyone let's go!" Naruto commanded his clones, who started charging towards the girls.

Hinata was the first one to be hugged by one of the Naruto clones as the other girls jumped away in time. As the clone cuddled Hinata, her face shot a shade of bright red while the other clones tried to hug the remaining girls.

"Saaaaakuuuuraaa-chaaaan!" One of the clones sang as he nimbly evaded Sakura's punches, something he had surprisingly gotten better at due to his training with Jiraiya.

"Naruto! Get away from me!" Sakura yelped as she tried to blow the clone to smithereens.

"Inoooooo! I'm going to hug youuuuuuuu!" Another one sang as Ino desperately tried to slice the clone to pieces with a kunai she had flinged out of her kunai bag.

"You are _so _dead, Naruto!" Ino said with a smile on her face.

"Ah! Naruto! Stop it!" Tenten said as she tried to escape the clutches of one of the Naruto clones as well.

"Hehehe...This is my great 'new' escape technique!" Naruto said proudly as he stood in the center of the hugging, or attempts to hug, frenzy.

"Naruto! I'm so going to get you for this!" Sakura said as she finally had been caught by one of the clones' hugs.

She was unable to punch him in the face or anywhere else because she knew her fist wouldn't stop there and she'd just end up hurting herself.

"Hehehe...I know, that's why it's my ESCAPE jutsu! Bye all! Oh and I'll see you tonight, Hinata!" Naruto said, though the young Hyuuga girl was unable to hear the last part since she was too caught up in the hugging, and then he waved Hinata and the girls goodbye before he started running away from them when Ino had finally been caught as well.

When the distance limit between Naruto and his clones had been reached, the clones popped off leaving the girls behind.

"Naruto...You are so going to pay for this!" Sakura yelled, shaking her fist in anger even though Naruto was long gone.

"Oh come on. Cheer up, Sakura." Ino said smiling, "Be glad he didn't take after that perverted sensei of his. That was kind of...fun. Though being caught was less fun."

"I guess that lightened our moods pretty much huh?" Tenten said smiling along with Ino.

"Really, you guys..." Sakura let her shoulder hang in disappointment, "I thought you were with me on this..."

Ino and Tenten giggled and Sakura shortly after joined in as Hinata shook out of her moment of bliss when she realized the Naruto clone was gone and now all she had to do was wait until the clock would strike seven.

...Or so she thought for a moment, but then she realized that the others had come over for a reason, though due to what just happened it had completely slipped her mind.

"Uhm...Why did everyone come to visit me again?" Hinata asked.

"You already forgot that?" Sakura asked.

"Something...about a letter addressed to the four of us...right?" Hinata tilted her head sideways.

"You received a letter from Nemar-kun too, right?" Ino asked her with a straight face.

"Huh? You too, Ino-san?" Hinata gave the blonde kunoichi a look of a surprise, "Then...could it be that everyone else...?"

"Yeah, we all got one from him too. A love letter, that is." Tenten said, her expression slightly sullying, though not nearly as downcast as she was before.

"This morning, as I was about to head over to Tsunade-sama, I found this scroll on my doorstep." Sakura said, handing Hinata the scroll in question.

"...We didn't get an individual letter this time?" Hinata wondered as she opened the scroll and began to read it.

"_To: Haruno Sakura, Yamanka Ino, Hyuuga Hinata and Tenten._

_I'm sure this comes as a surprise, but I recently introduced myself to the four of you. That's right, this is Nemar again!_

_I have to confess something, as you might be able to tell from the fact that this letter is addressed to the four of you. No, it should be the five of you, but I suppose I won't get a reply from Sunagakure for a while at the very least._

_If you're wondering if I meant what I wrote in the letters I sent you individually, I still do. I like all of you and honestly, you're so amazing in my eyes that I have no clue who my heart desires the most._

_You have my thanks for replying so soon to my letter. I felt warm inside just reading them, despite...certain comments."_

"Certain...comments?" Hinata repeated and looked up from the letter at her three friends.

"Ah...I think that would be my letter he's referring to." Ino said with a sheepish smile on her face, "I got a little too excited and kind of, sort of wrote something I started to regret once I calmed down...Ahahaha."

"_What in the world did you write in your letter?_" The three others all thought. Hinata dived back into reading the rest of the letter.

"_Starting tomorrow, I will meet with everyone to properly introduce myself in person. I'll leave this letter in the care of Haruno Sakura, who I think will be the most responsible and contact all __of you to share this information with you. I would have written to you individually, but I wanted to bring you together at the very least, and have the truth out in the open. After all, you are friends! I don't want a weird situation where everyone thinks I'm the bad guy for deceiving you in some way!_

_Honestly, I didn't expect all of you to reply like this, so that's why I wrote to you individually. I hope that clears up any potential misunderstandings._

_I'm really looking forward to meeting everyone up close and personal tomorrow!_

_-From Nemar with love."_

Hinata looked up from the letter again and rolled it back up.

"So, what do you think, Hinata?" Sakura asked.

"Eh...What do you mean...exactly?" Hinata asked in return.

"Just as she says. If this guy is as..." Ino coughed, "Cool as he sounded in the letters addressed to us, I'm sure the four of us will compete over him."

"You mean five, right?" Tenten added, "He mentioned someone from Suna as well. No matter how I think about it, that must be that wind element user. The Kazekage's older sister, Temari. She's the only one that stands out enough."

"Ah...Like that." Hinata said, "_I'm...not really interested though._"

"Also, something is very strange about all this." Sakura said with a serious look in her eyes.

"There you go again..." Ino sighed.

"Strange?" Hinata repeated.

"That letter was delivered personally to my house by someone. I found it in front of my front door rather than in the mail box." Sakura stated, "Why would he hide from me today, yet be fine with meeting us starting tomorrow?"

"Maybe he's just a little shy?" Tenten said with a smile on her face, remembering that Neji seemed to be the shy type as well when it came to things like this.

"I don't think anyone who'd aim for five different girls at the same time would be shy." Ino retorted, "I don't want to agree with Sakura here, but he's definitely not a shy fellow."

"Maybe he had other things to do today?" Hinata wondered out loud.

"That might be true, but..." Sakura protested, "_Something is definitely odd here..._"

"I guess that's all the business we had for today then." Ino said as she stretched out, "I'll see you all tomorrow and may the best girl win...if everyone's still interested after tomorrow."

"I'm still concerned, but...I guess it can't hurt to just wait and see what happens." Sakura hesitantly agreed that there was nothing else they could do today about the situation.

"Then, let's try to meet up tomorrow after we've all met him." Tenten suggested

"That sounds good." Sakura agreed.

"I don't mind." Ino said with a nod as she turned around and started heading for the exit of the Hyuuga compound.

"I suppose...that's fine." Hinata said softly.

"Then, see you guys tomorrow." Ino waved goodbye.

"See you tomorrow." Sakura said as she followed her best friend's example and headed out of the Hyuuga compound.

"Bye Hinata!" Tenten said with a cheerful smile and wave at the Hyuuga heiress.

"Bye everyone." Hinata said meekly as she saw her friends off.

When they were all gone, she sat down on the ground and took a deep breath.

"Even though I said I had someone I liked, he wants to meet me too? Wh-what should I do? What would Naruto-kun think if he saw us together?" Hinata wondered when her eyes widened, "That's...that's right! I have to get ready for tonight!"

"What's tonight, oneesan?"

"Tonight I'm going to-..." Hinata's face flushed red, both at the thought of tonight's date and at the fact there was someone listening to her.

"H-Hanabi!" She yelped as she turned around to face her younger sister.

Her little sister was drying her hair with a towel, seemingly having just finished swimming as she was still wearing her bathing suit.

Her eyes had a calm demeanor to them as she looked down upon her older sister, something Hinata believes to be mostly the result of her father's rigorous training.

The younger Hyuuga wasn't nearly as cold as her looks would suggest, but Hinata knew better than to try and deceive her in any way. After all, Hanabi had a talent for being able to persuade her older sister.

"Come on, oneesan. What are you going to do tonight?" Hanabi repeated her question.

"Uhm...I...I have a date...w-with N-Naruto-kun..." Hinata admitted with a bright blush on her face.

The cold look in Hanabi's eyes melted like snow before the sun, "A date?"

Hinata slowly nodded, feeling tremendously embarrassed to say those words out loud to a member of her family, even if it was her little sister.

"Amazing! What are you going to wear tonight, oneesan?" Hanabi exclaimed, her eyes shining with a rare light that not many got to see.

"Uhm...I'm...not sure yet." Hinata admitted.

Hanabi leaped with joy at her older sister, grabbing both her hands, "Then, let's go shopping, oneesan!"

Despite how serious she took her training, and no matter how much stronger she became than Hinata or how much more potential she had according to their father, Hyuuga Hanabi loved spending time with her older sister. It was at times like these, the times where the young girl could take her mind of all the work she had to go through on a daily basis, that she brightened up and smiled a smile only a few people were honored to know.

"Uhm...sure." Hinata nodded and the smile on her little sister's face grew wider.

"All right! I'm going to get dressed right away!" She cheered as she ran off.

Hinata stood up and dusted herself off, a smile firmly pasted on her face, "_I'll have to thank __Naruto-kun for this too."_

Not long after Hanabi had dashed off to get dressed, she came back out into the courtyard and started dragging her older sister along towards the shopping district of Konoha. Being dragged from store to store, Hanabi made Hinata wear all sorts of different outfits before she finally stopped and said, "Hey oneesan?"

"What is it, Hanabi?"

"Did you know? I heard there's an outdoor concert tonight. I was thinking, if you were to go there, which you probably will...It's kind of like a festival right, so..." Hanabi said eyeing her sister intensely.

"S-So...?" Hinata asked, tilting her head to the side.

Hanabi tiptoed and raised a big grin at her, "So I was thinking, we should probably get you a yukata after all!"

"A...a yukata? Is...is it really alright if I wear something like that?" Hinata wondered, fidgeting with her fingers.

"Of course it is! You'll look amazing! You want to impress _him_ after all, don't you?" Hanabi asked.

"W-Well...yes...I do, but..."

"No buts! Come on, I know where we need to go!" Hanabi exclaimed, cheerfully dragging her sister off to another clothing store.

Hinata tried several different beautiful yukata, all based on her little sister's insistent recommendations, and although she was fine with any of them, Hanabi disagreed every time and made her try something else.

Finally, Hanabi handed her a white-silver yukata that caught her eye. When Hinata had put it on in the changing room and looked at herself in the mirror, she was feeling a mixture of astonishment and increased self-confidence as she actually thought she looked pretty good in it.

Her silence left Hanabi impatiently waiting outside the changing room however, "Oneesan, are you wearing it yet? I want to see it already!"

"Ah, yes, you can come in now, Hanabi." Hinata replied.

Hanabi quickly hopped behind the curtain and gasped when she got a good look at her sister, "O-Oneesan, you look more beautiful than ever."

"Y-You think so too, eh?" Hinata said as she checked her potential new yukata out in the mirror once more.

Hanabi patted her hands along every curve of her older sisters body, "Wow, it fits you perfectly...I think you'll blow him away with your looks alone, oneesan."

"B-Blow him away?!" Hinata yelped.

"And if this isn't enough for some reason..." Hanabi evaluated eyeing Hinata up and down before pulling slightly at the top of the yukata, revealing more than just a little bit of her older sister's skin and cleavage.

Hinata quickly threw her arms in front of her, "H-Hanabi...! Wh-what are you doing?!"

"Ahahaha, I'm sorry, oneesan." Hanabi laughed, "Don't go and do that in front of him, please. You'll disgrace the Hyuuga name...and probably bleed him to death in the process."

"_She has a weird sense of humor..._" Hinata thought and let out a deep sigh. Surprisingly, Hanabi sighed as well, making Hinata look at her in surprise.

Looking in the mirror, Hanabi patted her own chest and said, "I wonder when I'll grow up like oneesan..."

Hinata let out an embarrassed laugh as she slightly blushed, "I'm...I'm not sure either..."

Having finally finished their shopping, the two Hyuuga sisters returned to their home, each with a cheerful smile on their face as they further enjoyed this rare moment in which they could act like sisters, unconcerned about the future of the clan or the state of the world.

By the time they came back, it was already time to prepare dinner and after placing the yukata in her room, Hinata and Hanabi parted ways to do their own part in preparing dinner.

Hinata's mood was brighter than ever though and she was anxiously sneaking glances at the clock. She wouldn't mind missing out on dinner if it meant it would be seven o' clock right away.

However, time progressed slowly while Hinata's heart kept on racing with anticipation.

She even started humming as she brought her father his dinner. The head of the Hyuuga family looked up from his meditation at his daughter. "Hinata...You're unusually cheerful tonight."

"Ah!" Hinata let out when her father suddenly addressed her, "I...I guess I am."

"Did something good happen?" Hiashi asked.

"Uhm...I...I'm meeting up with...a friend in a bit..." Hinata meekly said, though the sentence itself brought another smile to her face.

"A friend?"

"Y-Yes...N-Naruto-kun, as a m-matter of fact..." Hinata said as she blushed and looked away from her father.

"Uzumaki Naruto? What are you going to do with him exactly?" Hiashi inquired.

"I...I...I'm just going to-..." Hinata paused for a moment.

She couldn't lie to her father, but she was afraid of what he might do if she told him it was a date. So she decided to speak the truth, yet not the entire truth, "H-Have fun with him, of course. Wh-what else could it b-be?"

Hiashi stared at his daughter for a while and then closed his eyes, "I see."

"Th-then...I'll be getting ready to head out now...So if you'll excuse me, Father..." Hinata said as she shuffled towards the exit of the hall her father always seemed to reside in.

Her father grunted in reply and waited for the sound of the door closing again before he opened his eyes and followed his daughter with his Byakugan.

When she was out of the range of his eyesight, the blood vessels on the side of his eyes resided and Hiashi flipped the table in front of him over.

"Fun?! She means a date, right?! That's got to be it! My little baby girl is going to go out on her first date tonight! I won't let him sully the Hyuuga name by doing indecent things with my baby girl...! Uzumaki Naruto is _that_ Jiraiya's pupil after all..." Hiashi shouted, rare as it was for him to lose his cool attitude.

Unbeknownst to the head of the family, his nephew was standing right outside his door as he continued flipping tables and releasing any frustration he had with the situation.

Neji had stopped cold in his tracks, both because of the tantrum Hiashi was throwing and because he could hear every single thing he was shouting in his rage.

"_Hinata-sama and Naruto are going out on a date tonight? What's the meaning of this...? Weren't Naruto and Tenten...?"_ Neji wondered as he silently moved away from Hiashi's chamber, "_I have to know..._"

Neji jumped to the roof of the compound and hid himself in the shadows.

"_I don't know when you'll leave, but just for tonight...I'm going to become your shadow, Hinata-sama, and find out what's going on here._"


End file.
